Ruby Red Death

Fourteen

The time was near. He might even be cutting it too close. He glanced at Verna. Thankfully, some of the fear in her eyes had been replaced by a resolute anger.

Out the window he could see that her plea to the guard had worked. The Amazon, Eva, was hurrying across the courtyard.

He had gone over the entire room and found it bug-free. Their biggest hope now was twofold. One, that Eva would be very sure of her position and enter the room alone. Two, that what Carter had to say would sap her caution long enough.

Verna sat on the bed. Carter stood by the window in full view of the slot in the door. The smooth shard of windowpane that he had removed from the cracked window was on the window ledge behind him, carefully wrapped in his handkerchief. The hardwood slat was between the mattress and the box springs, easily available.

They heard the thud of the guard’s boots and the click of Eva’s heels on the stairs.

Carter glanced at Verna. “Can you do it?”

“I can do it,” she replied, tight-lipped.

The footsteps stopped at the door. Carter couldn’t see the guard’s eye at the slit, but he knew it was there.

The door opened. The guard stepped in, his rifle ready. Eva moved right in behind him, a revolver held loosely in her right hand. The guard covered Carter with the rifle. Eva turned to Verna.

“Well, what is it you think you have to tell me that is so important?”

“It isn’t her,” Carter said quietly, “it’s me.”

She whirled. “You?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, speak!”

Carter shook his head. “In private.”

Eva glanced at the guard and hooded her eyes in thought. The Killmaster was gambling that she would accept the idea that he thought he might get a better deal from her than he would from Bolivar.

He reinforced it. “I had a last word from Bolivar. Evidently he doesn’t care about knowing the whole story any longer. I thought you might.”

He could see the wheels turning in her blond head. She would run to Bolivar with anything he told her, but perhaps she could convince Carter that she would intercede for his life.

She made up her mind and turned to the guard. “Outside. I’ll call you if I need you.”

Reluctantly, the guard backed from the room. The door closed but the lock didn’t click.

Eva turned to face Carter. “Well?”

“In private,” he said.

She glanced at Verna. The woman was doing a good job. She was on the bed, slumped back against the wall, her eyes vacant and staring. The big woman decided to take her chances and advanced on Carter, stopping a few feet from him.

“What is it?” she murmured.

“Bolivar was only half right,” Carter said in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Half right?” Eva replied, matching his volume.

“He accused me of coming here to kill him. It’s true, that’s what I was hired to do.”

“So, and who hired you to do this?”

“I want your word that you’ll get me out of here. I don’t care about her, you can do what you want with her.”

Carter had kept lowering his voice. To hear better, Eva had inched forward as he talked. The revolver was still pointed in his direction, but in her curiosity it was still being held with a loose hand.

“Names... tell me the names,” she hissed.

“No names. I don’t know them. A contact and the organization.”

The woman smiled. “It is Odessa.”

“No.”

“Then who?”

Verna had the slat free from between the mattress and box springs. It was held in two steady hands over her shoulder as she advanced. Carter kept his eyes steady on Eva’s.

“Take me into the jungle, a head start of two miles. Just you and your gun. Then I’ll tell you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know I just won’t kill you in the jungle after you tell me?”

Carter smiled. “I don’t. But it’s a better chance than I’ve got here, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, that’s true. I—”

The blow coming partially across the back of the skull and the shoulder wasn’t as clean as Carter would have liked, but it did the job. Eva grunted in pain and shock and fell forward.

Carter chopped her wrist with his left hand, sending the revolver slithering across the room. He grabbed the handkerchief-wrapped glass with his right.

The woman had a lot of strength and fortitude. She was about to scream, when Carter grabbed the long braid of blond hair that hung down her back. In one smooth motion he jerked the braid tight around her throat so she couldn’t scream. He looped it cruelly into the softness of her flesh and drove her to the floor by pressing his knee into her belly.

Wide with shock, her eyes stared up into his as he flashed the shard of glass in front of her face.

“No sound,” he hissed. “Blink if you understand.”

She remained motionless, either from fear or defiance. He moved the razorlike sliver back and forth in front of her eyes and leaned forward to whisper.

“One sound and I’ll gouge out your eyes. One kick or squeal and I’ll leave two raw holes in your face. Well?”

White and contorted, her face twitched and finally her eyes blinked several times. He eased off the twisted braid of hair just enough to give her air.

“I’m going to lift you up, Eva, and walk you to the door.”

Her breath made a hissing sound and terror was in her eyes. Carter took his knee from her body and tugged on the braid, lifting. She swayed on her feet. He led her to the door, changed grips on the hair so that he stood to one side and partly behind her. He showed her the sharp spear of glass again.

“Verna, get the gun. Now unload it. Good, now hand it to her.”

“I’d like to pistol-whip her with it,” Verna spat.

“I’m sure you would, but this is more important.”

“You’ll never get as far as the jungle,” Eva cracked. “There are no roads, there—”

“Shut up,” Carter growled. “Verna, give her the gun.”

Verna placed the revolver in the larger woman’s hands and stepped to the center of the room.

“Okay, what’s the guard’s name outside the door?”

“Donner,” Eva replied.

“It’d better be. Call out, tell him to come in here. If his name isn’t Donner and he gets edgy, I’ll slit your throat.”

He maneuvered the big woman so that, through the slit, the guard could see Eva, still holding the gun, and most of Verna’s body.

“All right... now!” Carter spat.

“Donner... Donner, come in, I am finished.”

Footsteps. A pause while the man, more from force of habit than anything else, peered through the slit. Then the door opened and he walked into the room.

Behind Eva’s back, Carter had already dropped the shard of glass and picked up the hardwood slat.

In one movement, he jerked Eva to her knees and swung the slat with all his strength.

The blow drove the man down and forward. His gun slid across the floor. Still hanging on to Eva’s braid, Carter heeled the man in the throat. The guard gasped on the floor, his legs twitching. Carter dragged Eva to the gun, picked it up, and wheeled to drive its butt savagely into the bridge of the guard’s nose. Grunting softly, he struck twice more. The sounds were wet and crunching.

He hauled the big woman across the man’s body to close the door, lightening his grip to let her gasp a breath as he made sure the guard was dead. He was about to turn, when he heard a sickening crunch. He looked around.

Verna had retrieved the empty revolver when Eva had dropped it. She had reversed it and split the big blonde’s skull with the butt. She was about to land a second blow, when Carter spoke.

“No need for that.”

“Oh, yes, there is.”

Carter took the gun from her hand. “No. In about five minutes this building is going sky-high. She’ll go with it.”

He got the shells from the bed and reloaded the revolver, then stuck it in his belt. He flipped off the safety and handed Verna the rifle.

“Can you use this?”

“I can point it and pull the trigger.”

“Good. Just don’t point it at me, and don’t pull the trigger until I tell you to.” Carter grabbed the blanket off the bed. “Let’s go!”

They moved quietly down the narrow passageway and then down the stairs. There was a guard lounging against one jamb of the open stable doors. His rifle was slung carelessly over one shoulder.

Carter was on top of him before the man knew he was there. Carter flipped the blanket over his head and then curled it tightly.

While the guard was trying to tear off the blanket, Carter hit him three times with everything he had. His fist sank each time wrist-deep into his gut, and the guard folded like a jackknife. Carter stood over him while he crouched on his knees with his hands clamped to his belly. He sucked breath into his tortured lungs and sobbed with pain.

Carter had all the time in the world to measure carefully and swing.

His knuckles hit him with such fury he hurtled backward horizontally, his nostrils dissolving into red as his shoulders thumped the ground.

He lay blowing red bubbles and Carter strode across to him, dragged him to his feet, shook him until he pawed the air in a weak show of defense, and then battered him to the ground again.

Carter gave no quarter. His knuckles were bone hammers. Every time the man fell, Carter dragged him to his feet and beat him into insensibility while he stood. The Killmaster battered his chest, ribs and abdomen, and pounded his face until his piggy eyes could no longer see and his mouth and nostrils were a red maw of bleeding flesh.

Then Carter stepped back and let him fall.

“My God,” Verna gasped at his elbow.

“It was the quiet way,” Carter said, lifting the man’s legs and tugging him deeper into the stables.

“What now?”

“You see the barn over there with the flat roof across the top?” he asked, checking the second guard’s rifle and slinging it.

“I see it.”

“We’re going over there. You’re going up on that flat part of the roof. Then you’re going to lie down and point your rifle at the house.”

“Damn.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid of heights.”

“You’ll just have to get over it. This way. There’s another guard in the courtyard between here and this building.”

“Wait a minute,” she whispered, grabbing his arm.

“What?”

“You said you attached explosives to all these buildings.”

“Not that one,” he replied. “That’s where the horses are. I’m an animal lover. C’mon, and stay in the shadows!”

At the last second he grabbed the dead guard’s wide-brimmed hat and jammed it on his head.

He led the way for fifty feet, a hundred, a hundred and fifty, and then he stopped, straining his ears and trying to pick up any alien sound.

When he heard nothing, he grabbed Verna’s hand and pulled her into the stables.

“That’s the ladder to the hayloft. When you get up there you’ll find another ladder that leads through the hole in the roof, there. See it?”

“I see it,” she said grimly, and started up the ladder.

“And remember,” Carter added, “shoot just for the house. We’ve got help coming out of the jungle.”

He waited until he saw her figure move through the hole in the roof, and then he moved back outside.

He was skirting the trees on the edge of the other outbuildings when the first explosion went off.