Memphis Run

Chapter Eighteen

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi glided up the stairs with pantherish finesse, reaching the landing door without making a sound, his katana in his right hand. A muted hubbub arose on the far side as he took hold of the doorknob, and he cautiously eased the door open a crack to hear better.

“—every guard except Pierce, Brosnan, and us out front.”

“What’s going on?”

“I heard he’s really pissed off. Something about a platoon being attacked.”

“The platoon the general took out this morning?”

“No. Another platoon.”

“Two platoons in one day? You’re kidding.”

“Hey, I only know what I was told, and I th…”

The voices tapered off as the speakers hurried out of range.

What was this? Were the guards assembling at the front of the mansion? If so, why? And if they were, this might be the opportunity he needed. Rikki widened the opening until he could slip through, pausing in the corridor to orient himself. If he remembered correctly, going to the right would take him in the general direction of the stairs to the second floor and the throne room. He padded stealthily to another hall, taking the right-hand fork, his ears primed to catch the faintest sound.

The next corridor was reached uneventfully.

Where were all the guards? Outside?

Rikki took a left, and he was 20 feet into the hallway when a scarcely audible conversation wafted from up ahead, growing louder with each second.

Hounds!

He spotted a door to his left and raced over. A quick check insured it wasn’t locked, and he was inside, his left ear pressed to the panel, in an instant. He found himself in a storage closet filled with mops, brooms, and cleaning supplies. The light came through a narrow window high on the rear wall.

“—want to be in the general’s shoes when the King gets back.”

“He ordered me to haul my ass down to the holding cells and find out what’s keeping General Thayer. He sounded mad as hell. He said something about showing the general how to do his job. And then he took off with the estate guards and two truckloads from the Complex. Also had a couple of jeeps. Looked like he was ready to start a war.”

“Did you hear the scuttlebutt about two platoons being wasted?”

“Yeah. And I don’t believe it for a minute.”

“You don’t?”

“Give me a break. Who could wipe out two platoons?”

“The Leather Knights.”

“Those suck-egg pansies can’t beat their meat without help. They couldn’t take on two of our platoons.”

Rikki gauged the two men to be several yards past the storage closet door. He opened it, confirming his guess, and stepped into the corridor.

The duo might stumble on him later if he spared them. He wanted them out of the way so he could achieve his goal unhindered. Each had an AR-15 slung over a shoulder, but neither were wearing sidearms.

“Excuse me,” Rikki said.

The Hounds stopped and glanced back, surprise twisting their features.

“You!” the one on the left exclaimed.

“Would you care to surrender?” Rikki asked.

In response, the guards tried to bring their Ar-15’s into play. They were pathetically slow.

To the Warrior, whose speed was uncanny and whose reflexes were honed to seemingly superhuman levels, the pair of Hounds moved with all the quickness of solidified lava. He was on them before either could completely unsling his rifle, his katana flashing, cleaving the forehead of the guard on the right, then slicing the neck of the other Hound.

They died horribly, whining and gurgling and convulsing on the floor, geysers of blood spattering onto the floor and the walls, both terrified at the prospect of slipping into eternity, and both doing so with a hideous death mask as the legacy to their passing.

Rikki jogged to the end of the hall, took a right, and in 30 seconds was standing in the broad central hallway. He dashed to the stairs and went up them three at a time. A sharp right, and he was running toward the throne room. He doubted the King would permit anyone to be in the throne room when the royal personage was absent, so he took a calculated gamble by throwing the door open when he arrived and springing inside.

The throne room was empty.

He crossed quickly to the rear door in the right-hand wall, hesitating before turning the knob, mentally girding himself. If his suspicion was correct, entering the Dark Lord’s chamber was the key to unraveling the mystery of Aloysius the First’s sway over the people of Memphis. If he was wrong, he’d be up against a mutant endowed with incalculable power.

There was only one way to find out.

Rikki took a deep breath, twisted the doorknob, and shoved. The door swept inward to reveal an inky chamber. He advanced several strides, the katana held in the jodan-no-kamae position, tensed to counter any attack.

He waited for the blazing red orbs and the radiant globes to appear, but nothing materialized.

Was his deduction accurate or was the Dark Lord off somewhere?

He backed to the wall and felt its smooth surface with his left hand, running his palm from waist height to as high as his shoulder and down again, moving away from the doorway. He went eight feet and found what he wanted.

A light switch.

Rikki faced the chamber and flicked the switch.

A series of overhead fluorescent bulbs illuminated the entire, large chamber, casting the Dark Lord’s abode in a pale, yellowish glow. The floor was composed of green tiles. Pale white squares of an unknown substance coated the walls and the ceiling. Dominating the room was a wide stage situated along the rear wall, and resting on the stage was the Dark Lord.

Rikki walked forward, marveling at the sight in front of him.

Positioned at both ends of the stage were enormous rectangular boxlike affairs, easily six feet tall, consisting of wooden side panels and a black plastic grill. Complicated electronic equipment flanked the gigantic boxes.

Between each box and the center of the stage was a tall metal pedestal supporting a glass sphere. Inside both spheres was a tapered gray needle.

And filling the center of the stage, near the front, dangled a peculiar glass or plastic panel suspended from the roof by silver chains. Underneath the panel was a console, its back to the room, with a microphone on the top.

What did it all mean?

Rikki angled to the left and found a short flight of steps to the stage. He hastened up, moving past the immense box and the odd pedestal to the control console. An array of switches, buttons, and meters evidently operated the equipment. He leaned over the console, studying the labels under each one, until he spied a white button marked POWER ON. His left forefinger depressed the button, and the console began to hum as the meters became lit and other small indicator lights came on.

Now what?

He found a toggle switch marked GLOBES and thumbed it down.

The glass spheres on the pedestals made a buzzing noise as blue and purple rays shot from the gray needles to the inner surface of the glass, arcing and sparkling.

Rikki stared at the spheres, puzzled. What purpose did they serve? He scanned the console, noting a recessed keyboard near his midriff, and tapped four of the keys. With each tap the chamber reverberated to raucous musical notes thundering from the boxlike objects.

Most strange.

He noticed a button labeled SATAN’S EYES and pressed it with his left index finger. Glancing overhead, he discovered a pair of fiery red eyes had appeared on the panel hanging from the silver chains.

This was mystifying.

Rikki contemplated the purpose for the equipment. The boxlike objects must be colossal speakers. The Family owned a few shortwave radios, and each incorporated a small speaker in its housing. But what about the spheres and the eyes? Were they part of a bizarre light show, a special effect-Special effect?

He recalled the history of the mansion as disclosed by the King. The noble man in the painting had been the first to own the estate, and then a musical group. Was it possible the equipment on the stage was theirs?

Was this chamber their practice room? Did that explain the keyboard and the speakers? He thought of the posters of the outlandish musicians decorating the throne room. Had the last owners of the estate been like those pictured in the posters? If so, everything was explained.

The King must have found this room when he occupied the mansion, and discovered the special effects while tinkering with the console.

Perhaps it was then that his insane mind had concocted the scheme of using the equipment to further his mad ambition. What had General Thayer said? There had been dissension in the ranks. A month after moving into the mansion, Aloysius had called a dissatisfied captain into this very room. Thayer and the other Hounds in the throne room had heard a terrible racket—the music from the speakers? And the King had come out with the dead captain.

Rikki stared at the console, immersed in speculation.

Aloysius must have decided to use the equipment to create the illusion of the Dark Lord. The idea was brilliant. What better way to stifle protest and insure obedience than to fabricate a dreaded deity that would punish transgressors with instant death?

The thought caused the Warrior to frown.

Not quite everything was explained.

What about the deaths?

Dozens of victims killed without a trace of violence on their corpses.

How could this have been done?

Some of the victims were found in locked rooms, and Thayer had mentioned one man killed ten miles from Memphis.

If the Dark Lord was a fake, then Aloysius must be responsible for the deaths. But what technique was he employing?

Rikki turned off the power and watched the spheres go dim as the humming ceased. He racked his memory, reviewing every type of weapon with which he was familiar, every kind he’d ever read about in the Family library. A gun fitted with a silencer was relatively quiet, but a bullet inevitably left a wound, even when fired by handguns of the smallest caliber. A bow and arrow were lethal and silent, but an arrow invariably made entry and exit holes. Tiny darts, in the hands of an expert, could be fatal, but again, they produced discernible points of penetration. Poison seemed highly unlikely. How would Aloysius administer a toxin to an unwilling recipient?

The mystery was even deeper.

How were the victims in the locked rooms killed if the doors and windows were secured?

Did Aloysius own keys to all the buildings at the Complex? Or did the King possess a single key capable of unlocking almost any door?

Rikki remembered reading about a certain sort of key used by the criminal element prior to the Big Blast. A skeleton key, or passkey, it was called.

Did Aloysius own a skeleton key?

There were so many questions, and not enough answers.

So what was his next move?

Rikki jumped from the edge of the stage to the floor and headed for the red door, pondering his course of action. He gazed at the door, idly wondering why the King hadn’t bothered to lock it. But why should Aloysius bother? The Hounds and the residents of Memphis were undoubtedly all terrified of the Dark Lord. Not one of them would be foolhardy enough to venture into the Dark Lord’s chamber. Aloysius had devised the perfect deterrent, the ideal protector, and the irony of the situation was that the people of Memphis were subservient to an illusion.

They were afraid of a shadow cast by a deranged mind. They were allowing themselves to be deluded because they lacked the courage to confront their fear, to face the truth.

He stopped in the doorway and looked back. What would happen, he wondered, if the people found out about the King’s deception? Would they rise in rebellion and overthrow his despotic yoke? Would they put an end to his demented drive to conquer the world? Or would they still follow Aloysius, staking their survival on a planet torn by strife and chaos in a man whose mind was a reflection of the postwar devastation?

Rikki took a step into the throne room. Just as the drumming cadence of many boots sounded from the corridor on the far side. Aloysius the First must be returning! And he had forgotten to close the throne room door!