by Timothy Zahn
"He hasn't. I grabbed Pittman and sent him out on Bernhard's tail before I came for you."
Pittman. Great. The man with the martyr leanings. "We've got to find them right away," he growled.
"I know. Over here."
They skidded to a halt at the stairway door. A few meters beyond it, Colvin was kneeling over a prone Jensen. "How is he?" Caine asked, dropping to one knee and checking the other's pulse.
"Out cold, but I don't think he's badly injured," the other replied. "I waved Alamzad over a minute ago and I sent him after Pittman, okay?"
"Yeah." Caine glanced around, but none of Lathe's team was in sight anywhere. "Braune, get back to the lab where you found me and tell Hawking. Colvin and I will go after Bernhard."
"Watch yourselves," Braune warned as he headed off again.
Inside the stairwell, all was quiet. "Which way?" Colvin whispered.
In answer, Caine pointed to the shuriken lying on the second step up. "My guess is the command level. Let's go."
They started to climb, as quietly as possible. Once again, Caine found himself thinking of how well designed for ambushes the staircase was, but again his fears proved unfounded. At each landing they found another throwing star pointing the way farther upward, but that was the only visible indication that anyone had even come this way since their arrival. No sounds other than their own footsteps; no glimpses of either their quarry or their fellow teammates. As they passed the command-center level and still the shuriken led upward, Caine began to wonder if perhaps Bernhard had caught and eliminated his new shadows and left the stars himself as decoys.
But they kept on, and just inside the level-one stairwell door Alamzad was waiting, his nunchaku gripped in his hand. "Where are Lathe and the others?" he hissed as Caine and Colvin stepped to his side.
"Braune's getting them," Caine said. "Where are Pittman and Bernhard?"
"Inside the hangar—straight down the hall and out the double doors," the other said. "Bernhard went right over to the main control station, we think. Pittman's watching from a distance, but he'll probably take some action on his own if you don't get in there quick."
"Hell," Colvin whispered. "Caine, the hangar is where the main tunnel exit starts. Do you think...?"
"That Bernhard's going to let the Ryqril in?" Caine's stomach knotted. "I sure as hell hope not. But whatever he's up to, we've got to get in there and stop him." He pulled the door open.
"Hold it," Alamzad said suddenly. "I thought I heard something on the stairs."
Colvin stepped to the railing, took a quick look down. "I don't see anything," he said. "Could be Lathe and reinforcements. Should we wait?"
"No." Caine shook his head. "Besides, this is our job—we're the ones Jensen picked for his backup, remember? Come on."
They slipped through into the darkened hallway, and from there past the large double doors into the hangar proper... and as they took their first tentative steps in the pitch-darkness, Caine realized they were in trouble.
The hangar was huge. The supply storage room they'd entered Aegis through had been comparable in size, but with boxes and crated machinery all around it had seemed more likely a cozy maze than anything else. In contrast, the hangar had an overwhelming sense of emptiness about it, an emptiness that, combined with the darkness, gave Bernhard a hell of a combat advantage.
"Where's this control station, Zad?" Colvin hissed at Caine's side.
"Straight across the hangar," Alamzad whispered back.
Caine took a deep breath. It was the blindfold test all over again, this time for real. "All right," he said, forcing calmness into his voice. "We'll use the Plinry recognition code system—try not to take each other out in the fight. Do you know where Pittman is, Alamzad?"
"Afraid not."
"Okay. Colvin, you hang back near the door until we've got Bernhard localized. Give us a hundredcount, then signal Pittman with the recognition info."
"Via tingler? That'll alert Bernhard."
"Can't avoid it. Besides, by then we ought to be in position to jump him."
"Right. Good luck."
Alamzad to his right, Caine set off. Open your senses, Lathe's old instructions came back to him.
Relax, and allow your subconscious to process the information your ears, nose, and skin are sending it. He concentrated... and as he slipped into the necessary mental state the small bubble of perception around him began to expand. There, off to his right—something large, with a stubby appendage stretched out toward them. One of the fighter craft, somehow still safely inside when the rest were locked out by the base's fall? Probably. Ahead, the sounds of a low voice were becoming audible—Bernhard talking to himself? Odd; but it was the best directional marker the hunters could have asked for. He stepped up his pace; with luck they'd be on top of the blackcollar before Colvin's tingler signal alerted him that he had company.
Caine: Bernhard on phone at far end of hangar.
"Dammit!" Caine snarled to himself, slapping at his tingler. But it was too late; Pittman's ill-timed message had sent the balloon up for good. "Attack," he snapped, charging forward.
Beside him, he sensed Alamzad vectoring off from his direction, swinging wide to flank Bernhard and present a more diffuse target. Caine snatched out his nunchaku, sent the flail swinging in a wide defensive arc ahead of him. Somewhere very near here—
With a crack of hardwood on hardwood the nunchaku leaped in his hand, almost tearing itself from his grip. He had barely time to realize he'd just hit Bernhard's own nunchaku before a foot snapped out toward his chest.
Snapped out much too fast to counter; but if Caine's reflexes weren't those of a blackcollar they were still adequately fast. Twisting at the waist, he managed to turn far enough for the kick to hit him obliquely, the toe of the boot scraping across his chest as it went by. Off-balance, his own counterkick was weak and of dubious aim, but it still connected solidly enough to elicit a grunt of pain from his opponent. Caine let the momentum of Bernhard's kick throw him backward, flipping himself over into a crouch. "Bernhard?" he called into the darkness. "Give it up, Bernhard—you can't get out of here."
The other didn't answer... but abruptly there was a crash of bodies off to his side. "Got him!"
Alamzad gasped, the last word cut off into a whuff of expelled air. Caine took a long step toward the sound, dimly sensing someone else moving in from behind. "Bernhard!" he snapped, and as the faint swish of cloth on cloth telegraphed the blackcollar's coming attack, Caine ducked his head, rolled into a flat somersault, and kicked both feet straight out toward his unseen opponent.
He caught Bernhard square in the chest, from the feel of the impact, throwing the other backward to the floor. Caine's nunchaku was still in his hand; rolling into his knees, he swung it whistling over his head.
The hardwood slammed into bare hangar floor, the crack echoing in the vast room. Caine flipped the flail horizontally, trying to find where Bernhard had rolled to. "Over here!" Colvin called from ahead of him, and Caine was scrambling to his feet when his tingler suddenly went on: Stand by for nova.
Nova; Plinry code for a flare. Caine halted in midstride, squeezing his eyes down to slits... and suddenly the room blazed with light.
Bernhard was caught flat-footed. Even as he twisted his head away from the glare and tried to leap back, Colvin's nunchaku lashed out to catch him hard across his abdomen. Bernhard folded over with a choked gasp, falling heavily to the floor. Colvin raised the nunchaku for a final blow to the head—
"Hold it!" Caine snapped. "Don't kill him. We need to know who he was talking to on the phone."
Colvin caught the flailing half of the nunchaku, brought both sticks down to a guard position. Caine glanced around, spotted Alamzad dragging himself slowly from a prone to a sitting position. "You all right?" Caine asked, stepping toward him.
The other nodded weakly, clutching his stomach... and only then did it penetrate Caine's conscious mind that the light bathing the tableau was far too clean
and steady to be coming from a flare.
He turned, squinting against the glare. A pair of spotlights of some sort. He stepped out of their direct line, in time to see a shadowy form climb out and away from a larger shadowy bulk.
The bulk he'd tentatively identified earlier as a leftover fighter craft. "Pittman?" he called.
"Here," Pittman replied, coming around into the light. "What do you know? The damn trick actually worked. I was afraid nothing would happen when I flipped the switch."
"I'm glad you didn't get the laser cannon controls by mistake," Caine countered. "Good move, though. All right, Bernhard—you've had enough time to get your wind back. Who'd you call and what did you tell him?"
Bernhard's face was still pained, but he managed a tight smile anyway. "I called for revenge," he said in a hoarse voice. "You're finished, Caine—you and your whole crowd of troublemakers. I've just burned your last bridge out of here."
Chapter 38
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Caine growled, his throat suddenly tight.
"It means I've taken out your base of operations," Bernhard said. Still holding his stomach, he eased himself into a sitting position. "You probably didn't know it, but while we were at his house Reger was stupid enough to tell me that he'd had Jensen redo his sensor net. Thought it would be a deterrent, I suppose. The fool. So. In an hour it'll be dark outside; half an hour after that he'll be dead meat."
Alamzad snorted weakly. "You're the fool," he said. "I worked with Jensen on that net, Bernhard—Security won't get within half a klick of Reger's house."
"Security?" Bernhard's lip twisted in contempt. "Quinn's trained idiots couldn't find their way through a garden patch. No, Security won't be called into the act until Reger is dead and his house a smoking ruin—though after that I imagine they'll find enough evidence linking him to you to take his organization apart down to the bedrock."
"So it was your blackcollar team you called," Caine said quietly, an odd feeling of sadness flowing in to replace some of the tension. He'd hoped Bernhard wouldn't do this. "All right, Bernhard—on your face on the floor. Lathe'll want to talk to you."
"Oh?" Abruptly, the pain left Bernhard's face, and in a single fluid move he was on his feet again.
"And I suppose you beginners are going to take me down to him? Forget it, Caine. I go where I choose—and you haven't got a snowflake's chance of stopping me."
"No, he doesn't," a new voice came from the shadows behind the fighter craft. "But I do."
Caine turned, combat reflexes tensing.
And Kanai walked forward into the light.
"You spoke of bridges," Kanai said, taking a few more steps forward to stand facing Bernhard.
Peripherally, he knew that Caine and Pittman had shifted position to bring nunchaku to bear against him; that Alamzad, still on the floor, had quietly drawn a shuriken. But at the moment none of that mattered. All that mattered was Bernhard and the shame he was bringing upon them all. "Another bridge is at risk here," he told his leader. "The bridge of friendship between us. If you value my loyalty—my presence in your team—you'll call Pendleton back and withdraw the order."
"So you're joining this band of suicidal fools?" Bernhard sneered. "I thought you had more sense, Kanai."
Kanai felt his lip twitch. "I have no intention of joining them, Bernhard—I don't especially like them, and some of Lathe's methods make me ill. But that's not the point. Like them or not, they are blackcollars... and I cannot simply stand by and allow you to betray them."
Bernhard returned his gaze steadily, and in the other's expression Kanai could see that there would be no turning back. Not for him, not for anything else. Bernhard had chosen his path, and nothing but death could turn him from it.
And Kanai felt infinitely old.
"You're getting worked up for nothing." Bernhard said softly. "I haven't betrayed any blackcollars—not really. But without Reger as a base, Lathe'll have no choice but to pull out as soon as they're done here." His eyes flicked back to Caine. "I warned him to get out of Denver, Caine.
This is the price of ignoring me."
"So you pay Reger back for your anger at Lathe?" Alamzad growled. "How noble. True blackcollar spirit."
Bernhard's expression hardened. "And what would you know about blackcollar spirit?" he countered.
"Or about warfare, for that matter? Reger's going to be an object lesson; when he breaks, the rest of the criminal underworld will fall into line that much faster."
"So that you can get your slice of the gravy pie?" Pittman said contemptuously.
"So that we can have the resources to continue the war," Bernhard told him.
Kanai shook his head. "No, Bernhard. Jensen was right—you haven't any real intention of taking us back into the battle. You're just playing games, pretending you're more than just the dead husk of what you once were."
Bernhard's eyes flashed anger. "And you, of course, are too noble to admit defeat when a cause is lost? Face reality, Kanai—we have each other and that's it. Either we stick together or Security takes us apart one at a time. If we can't win the war, we can at least survive."
"To what end? Survival for its own sake? That's no better than death." With an effort Kanai stifled the tirade building up inside him. Now was not the time for a philosophical discussion. "Call Pendleton back. This is your last chance."
"No," Bernhard shook his head.
Kanai let his hand rest on the ends of his sheathed nunchaku. "Then I will."
"You can try. You'll have to get by me first."
Kanai took a deep breath. "I know," he said softly, and started forward. One step... two.... Bernhard brought his own nunchaku into fighting position....
"Stop," Caine said suddenly. "Kanai, back off. It's not worth risking your life for. Reger's not in any danger—all Bernhard's done is to send his own men to their deaths."
Bernhard snorted. "Because of Jensen's big bad sensor system? I see you're not familiar with the term 'keyhole.' "
"You mean the setting up of a section of sensor net that can be deactivated from the outside?" Caine said calmly. "Oh, there's a keyhole there, all right. I presume that's why Reger and Jensen let you know that he'd done the work, so you'd know to look for a keyhole if you decided to betray us."
Bernhard's eyes narrowed. "You're slidetalking," he said flatly. "Reger shot off his lungs, and you're just trying to talk your way out of the hole."
Kanai turned to see Caine shake his head... and something in the other's face sent a shiver up his own back. "You're wrong," Caine said. "Jensen did more than just revamp Reger's sensor net, Bernhard.
He also built a death-house gauntlet into the mansion."
"What?" Bernhard's hands visibly squeezed down on his nunchaku.
"You heard me. A death house, one capable of taking out even blackcollars. So leave him be, Kanai.
If they obey him, what happens is on their own heads."
For a long moment Bernhard stared hard at Caine, indecision rippling across his face. "And you think it's too late to warn them, do you?" he at last. "Well—"
Without warning, he turned and sprinted back to the hangar wall and snatched up the phone headset.
Caine snarled something, but it was clear he'd been caught off-guard and his reaction would be too slow. Across the way Pittman hurled his nunchaku at Bernhard, which missed, and Colvin charged forward, scrabbling for a shuriken—
And something inside Kanai broke.
A shuriken seemed to leap of its own accord into his hand; all the frustration and shame of the past years welled up in his arm to send the black throwing star burning across the gap like an avenging angel—
And Bernhard jerked backward with a yelp as the shuriken sliced cleanly through the phone cord and ricocheted from the metal wall into the darkness.
"No," Kanai said into the sudden silence. The word was heavy on his tongue—heavy, but strangely clean. "With your actions you've forfeited the right of command. Caine is rig
ht; the others must now make their own choice as to whether or not to accept your betrayal."
Slowly, Bernhard laid down the handset and started to walk toward Kanai, his eyes alive with madness-tinged hatred. Kanai licked his lips, but stood his ground without fear. He had no doubt he would die in the coming fight, but death wasn't really that hard to face. Not for a man who'd been allowed one last chance to regain the manhood he'd thought gone forever.
"Don't try it, Bernhard."
The voice came from the shadows behind Kanai; and as Bernhard jerked and a low guttural growl escaped his lips, Kanai thought he would attack right then and there. Slowly the madness left the other's eyes, and with a deep, pain-filled breath he straightened from his fighting stance and lowered his arms to his sides.
And stood there, his face a mask, as Skyler and Hawking stepped forward into the light to take him under control. Behind them, Lathe paused beside Kanai. "Welcome back," the comsquare said, searching the other's face.
Kanai locked eyes with him. "You were waiting to see what I'd do, weren't you?" he said, anger at Lathe stirring in him again. "To see whether I'd side with him."
"As you said, each of you has the right to make his own choice," the comsquare said quietly.
Kanai took a deep breath, eyes flicking to where Bernhard's hands were being secured behind him.
Why doesn't he try to escape? he wondered... but the question wasn't hard to answer.
Even half insane with anger, Bernhard was still first and foremost a survivor.
Kanai closed his eyes briefly and turned away... and wondered why that thought should so fill him with pity.
Chapter 39
"Where will you go?" Caine asked as Skyler removed the makeshift shackles from Bernhard's wrists and stepped back to stand by the entrance to Torch's bypass tunnel.
Bernhard rubbed his wrists for a moment in silence before fixing Caine with a cold glare. "Do any of you really care?" he asked. His eyes flicked from Caine to Lathe, lingered on Kanai. The latter seemed to Caine to stiffen slightly, but he didn't shrink from Bernhard's gaze.