Shadow of a Broken Man

18

The luminous dial on my watch read four fifteen as Tal pulled his car up to the curb a half block away from the consulate. The street was deserted except for an occasional taxi that sped past, ferrying the night people.

Tal and Lippitt immediately went to the locked glass door of the office building next to the consulate. I followed and waited in the shadows. Lippitt reached into his pocket and withdrew a length of stiff wire; within seconds he'd picked the lock. In a few minutes we were on top of the building and looking down on the roof of the consulate. Across the way, I could see the upside-down Ls of the ventilator shafts glinting in the moonlight. It was a good twenty-five feet across, with a downward angle of about thirty degrees. I would have to clear a two-foot parapet; if I missed, it was eighteen stories to the ground.

"Check your equipment," Lippitt said curtly.

For the third time that evening I opened the canvas flight bag Tal had given me and checked its contents: a small acetylene torch with self-contained gas supply, a bottle of olive oil, flashlight, gun, magnet, and grenade-type incendiary bomb.

"Everything's here," I said, zipping up the bag and rising.

"Once again," Tal said. "You'll keep track of the floors by counting the intersections of horizontal and vertical ducts. When you get to the third floor, you'll go to your left. Count ten sections-you'll feel the seams-and cut through in the middle of the tenth section. You should find yourself on a stairwell landing. Go through the door and down to the end of the corridor. That's where you plant the incendiary bomb; it has only an eight-second fuse, so don't waste time after you pull the pin; get down the stairs as fast as you can. At the bottom, you'll find an exit door with a steel bolt. It leads to a service alley. That's where Lippitt and I will be."

"Give me about forty minutes," I said, flinging the canvas bag out into the darkness. It landed with a dull thud on the consulate roof. Before I could give myself time to think about it, I backed up a few paces, ran forward, and threw myself into the yawning, empty night between the buildings. Wind whistled in my ears as the parapet rushed up at me. I cleared it by no more than an inch, tucked and rolled when I hit the tarmac. Using my shoulders and upper back to absorb the force of my landing, I rolled a second time and came up on my feet.

Across the way, Tal and Lippitt gave me a thumbs-up sign, then melted back into the shadows. I picked up the canvas bag and walked to the ventilator shafts.

Both shafts were covered with steel grates. I took out the torch and went to work on the one on the right. The torch sputtered a few times, but finally cut through the bolts holding the grille in place. The shaft looked awfully narrow, and I was going to have to squirm down fifteen stories in it.

I smeared my body and clothes with olive oil, then clambered into the duct feet first, scraping the skin on my elbow. I rolled over on my stomach and, dragging the bag after me, worked my way over the angle of the L. Darkness closed over my head.

The duct sloped slightly, but it was still steep. At one point I began to slide too quickly; I flexed my shoulders and thighs and braked to a stop. The friction had burned through my shirt and pants, and my flesh throbbed. I manipulated the bottle over my head and poured more oil down over my body. I wondered how long the oil would last; if I got stuck, it would take a team of plumbers a week to get me out.

I reached the first horizontal section. Fourteen more floors to go; I lay in the wider section of the duct and panted. There was a slight draft coming down from the top; I waited until the sweat dried, then started down again.

It cost me a lot of pain, not a little anxiety, and a lot of skin when I ran out of oil on the eighth floor. But I made it to the intersection of ducts on the third floor. In the middle of the tenth section, I took out the torch and magnet. I was already considerably behind schedule, and it took ten minutes to get the torch working properly. The fact that I could barely breathe didn't help.

I adjusted the tiny blue-white flame of the torch and went to work on the metal. It quickly became a question of what would burn out first, the metal or me. Within moments the metal under my knees became red hot; I could smell my clothing burning, and I was breathing in quick, nervous gasps.

With about an inch to go, I removed the magnet from the bag, draped the attached leather thong around my neck, and placed the magnet in the center of the circle I'd circumscribed with the cutting flame. Then I cut the rest of the way through the metal and pulled the hot circle up and out.

I waited a few minutes for the metal to cool, then poked my head down through the hole in the duct. Tal and Lippitt had been right on target: my nose was a few inches away from a glowing EXIT sign. A well-lighted stairway led down and up from the landing. I dropped to the stairwell, dragging the canvas bag after me. I immediately took out the automatic, checked the full magazine, then crouched by the door to listen. When I heard nothing, I pushed through.

According to plan, I found myself at one end of a long, carpeted corridor. I had to plant the bomb at the opposite end of the corridor where it would do the most damage, then get down the stairs to let in Lippitt and Tal. I hurried down the corridor, knelt in a corner at the end, and unzipped the bag.

At the sound of a door opening directly behind me, I rose and spun. There was no place to run or hide, so I whipped the gun out of my waistband and aimed it at a point in space where the man's chest would appear in another split second. The door opened and my finger froze on the trigger. Big as death, dressed in the uniform of a Russian major, stood Kaznakov. He looked to me like an ogre from some half-remembered childhood dream.

I looked to him like a dwarf he'd seen before.

He thought and moved faster than I did. While I was still waving my pistol around in space, he reached out and swatted it from my hand as easily as a grizzly smashing fish out of a stream.

That woke me up; I crouched down and started to back up in the few feet I had between Kaznakov and the wall. He didn't even bother to draw his revolver from its holster; he just grinned crookedly and lumbered forward, arms outstretched to cut off any possible avenue of escape.

I wasn't about to let the scabby-faced Russian carry me off gently into the good night of one of the darkened rooms off the corridor. A few hours earlier, I'd have been paralyzed by the mere sight of the man in front of me. Now, thanks to Rolfe Thaag's Miracle Tea and Sleep Cure, I was ready to do a little battle.

When I was backed to the wall, Kaznakov crouched and leaped at me. I ducked under his outstretched arms, spun around, and landed the point of my shoe on his elbow. I'd been aiming for the base of his spine, but the kick on the elbow did some good; there was a crunching sound. Kaznakov grunted with surprise and pain as the arm I'd kicked convulsed, then flopped to the side of his body. I pivoted again and dived for my gun, gripped it, rolled over on my back, and pointed it at a thoroughly surprised Kaznakov. I giggled in hysterical relief and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened; the force of Kaznakov's knocking the gun against the wall had jammed the firing mechanism. I threw the gun at his huge globe head-and missed.

Kaznakov, satisfied that I couldn't get through a door before he shot me, was taking a breather. He cursed in Russian and spat, cradling his broken elbow and leaning against the wall. He looked at me through eyes glazed with pain and hatred. "I am going to tear your arms and legs from sockets."

Slowly, I got to my feet. We stood a few feet apart, panting and staring at each other.

The huge moon eyes slowly blinked. "How did you get out of the farmhouse?"

"Magic, pig!" I shouted, adrenaline bubbling through my bloodstream. "Didn't your pig mother ever tell you any fairy tales about dwarfs?"

Maybe he didn't like my insulting his mother; more likely, he was just tired. He reached across his body for his gun, and I showed him another move.

In the circus I'd leaped over barriers a lot higher than Kaznakov, but I'd had considerably more room to get up a head of steam. As it was, I made it to about the level of his neck, twisted in the air, and kicked at the area of his bandaged nose. The Russian reached out and plucked me out of the air like a fielder snaring an easy pop-up. He immediately began to squeeze.

I came down hard on both his ears with my palms. He screamed and dropped me as he reached for his head. I fell to the floor; as luck would have it, Kaznakov tripped and fell on top of me. I groped in front of me for the canvas bag that was only inches away from my fingertips, but it was no good. Kaznakov had me. Instantly on his feet, he picked me up and hurled me against the wall. I instinctively- relaxed to try to prevent broken bones, but it felt as though I'd been hit by a freight train. I bounced off the wall and hit the floor. Everything went dark, as if someone had tripped a wire inside my brain. Huge black waves pounded over my head as I clung frantically to the cliff edge of consciousness, knowing that if I went over that drop I was a dead man.

Some of my vision was coming back, but it was blurred. I heard the Russian's breathing, heavy with hate. Iron fingers wrapped around my ankles and twisted, pulling my legs in opposite directions. Kaznakov intended to literally split me up the middle with his bare hands.

Still blind, I groped for something to use as a weapon, and my fingers found the canvas bag. Pain shot up through my groin to my belly; in a few seconds, ligaments would start to tear. But I was getting more of my vision back. Kaznakov's leering face was very close to mine; he was watching me with a kind of detached interest, waiting for me to start screaming.

Trying to forget the pain for just a moment, I tensed, focusing all my energy into the palms of my hands for one more blow. When I could stand the pain no longer, I screamed at the top of my lungs and again brought my hands around on Kaznakov's ears.

He yelled and released my ankles. I swung at his head with the sack, then somehow managed to get my feet under me; the only problem was that my legs weren't working right. I tried to run, tripped and stumbled, got up, then stumbled again. I needed a time-out; I had my eyes back, but I needed a decent set of legs to go with them. Kaznakov, of course, wasn't inclined to be obliging. He either had forgotten about his gun, or had lost interest in doing anything short of tearing me apart with his hands. He was coming at me full tilt.

I got up and tried to run again, with only slightly more success. Kaznakov was gaining on me fast. There was only one thing left to try, and it was going to take some exquisite timing-not to mention luck. I tried to judge from the sound of his footsteps just where he was. When I felt his arms reach out for me, I dropped like a stone. Kaznakov went sailing through the air over my head.

I leaped onto the backs of his knees and drove my thumbs as hard as I could into his kidneys. He gargled with rage and pain and started to get up on his hands and knees. I wrapped my legs around his middle and hung on as he started to buck. At the same time, I unzipped the bag and searched inside for the incendiary grenade; I found it and wrapped my fingers around the hard metal.

Kaznakov was on his feet now, writhing, banging me against the wall, struggling to get me off his back. I grabbed his shirt collar and yanked; the shirt and jacket tore open. Still gripping his midsection with my legs, I pulled the pin on the grenade and dropped it down the back of his shirt. Then I jumped off and started hobbling toward the door where I'd come in. When I didn't hear footsteps behind me, I stopped and looked back.

Kaznakov was standing where I'd left him, a dazed expression on his face as it slowly dawned on him that there was a live grenade inside his shirt. He began to dance and claw at his shirt and jacket, trying to get at the small, deadly sphere that was ticking against his flesh. But he knew he was finished; at the last moment he stopped his wild dancing and stared at me. I thought I saw tears in his eyes.

A fountain of flame suddenly shot up from his back. There was a loud whooshing noise, and Kaznakov, without a sound, disappeared into that red fountain. He stayed on his feet a few more seconds, the shadowy outline of a giant petal in a huge crimson flower that was spreading through the corridor; then he sank down. The air was filled with the stench of gasoline and roasting human flesh.

I ran for the exit, pushed through the door, and froze.

Someone was racing up the stairs. I had no gun and no place to hide. I backed up against the wall of the stairwell and crouched, ready to spring if I ever got the chance. The man rounded the bend in the stairs just below me.

"Tal!"

Tal stopped and looked up at me. There was blood streaming from both his nostrils, bright crimson stains on flesh the color of chalk. He swiped at the blood with the back of his hand, then yelled at me. I couldn't hear him above the din of the alarm bell, but I could read his lips: "Follow me! Hurry!"

I scrambled off the landing and down the stairs after Tal. Despite the beating I'd taken, I felt vital and alive, powered by a terrible excitement: I'd killed Kaznakov.

We met Lippitt, his gun drawn, between the first and second landings. His eyes were wide, face flushed. "What the hell?" he shouted at Tal. "I was only gone a minute! How the hell did you get in?"

"The door must have opened automatically when the fire alarm went off!" Tal shouted back. "I just pushed on it and it opened!"

"Why didn't you wait for me?" Lippitt demanded.

"No time! There's no time now! Every second counts!"

Lippitt nodded curtly, turned, and led the way down toward the basement. He paused in front of the basement door.

Tal stepped forward. "Wait here," he said.

"No," Lippitt said. He was looking at Tal suspiciously. "I go where you go."

Tal glanced at me. "Will you wait here, Mongo?" There was a note of impatience in his voice. "Fire or no fire, there'll probably still be a guard standing in front of the Fosters' room. I may be able to bluff him, but certainly not if you're along."

I nodded. What Tal said made sense. Still, Lippitt was right on Tal's heels as they went through the basement door. I waited ten seconds, then pushed the door open a few inches and peered down the corridor. The hallway looked the same as the one on the third floor-except that there was a guard standing in front of a door fifty feet down the hall in these, the "living quarters" indicated on the schematics.

Tal walked quickly, with an air of absolute assurance, even when the guard raised his rifle and challenged him. Lippitt was walking a few feet behind Tal, using the taller man's body to shield the automatic in his hand.

Tal spoke rapidly to the guard, in fluent Russian. I felt a little chill up my spine. I could understand Lippitt's sudden nervousness. The discussion quickly degenerated into an argument, with Tal maintaining, from what I could gather from his hand gestures, that the Fosters would have to be taken out of the room because of the fire. The guard was apparently insisting that Tal and Lippitt produce some kind of credentials. Tal made a show of going through his pockets while Lippitt ended the discussion by hitting the guard over the head with the butt of his gun.

Lippitt immediately went to his knees in front of the door and began to pick the lock. I pushed through the door and ran down the hall, arriving just as Lippitt finished his work and opened the door.

The Fosters were standing in the middle of the room. Mike Foster had his arms wrapped tightly around his wife. Both were still in their nightclothes. "Mongo!" Foster shouted when he saw me. "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!"

Something in Foster's voice caused his wife to push his arms away from her shoulders. She turned slowly to look at us. Elizabeth Foster was a beautiful woman, even without makeup and numbed by sleep. But now her thin lips were compressed by terror, her violet eyes muddy with shock. She gasped when she saw Lippitt.

"You!"

"Hello, Mrs. Foster," Lippitt said softly.

Foster's mouth opened and closed without making a sound. He kept staring at me, as if he couldn't believe I was there. I knew how he felt.

"Let's go," Lippitt said.

It was Tal who led the way out. "This way," he said, turning to his right and motioning for us to follow.

Lippitt abruptly stopped in the doorway, blocking our way. I watched the gun in his hand swing up and point at Tal. "Hold it," Lippitt said. "That's not the way out. We go out the way we came in. That's the plan!"

Tal's eyes flashed angrily. "We can't make it that way, Lippitt. They'll be waiting for us! You tripped an alarm when you opened the door."

"How the hell do you know that?"

"Look at the doorjamb!"

Lippitt and I looked in the direction where Tal pointed; there was a thin, almost invisible wire running the length of the jamb.

Lippitt hesitated. "The way you want to go leads right up to the lobby; there'll be a lot of firepower there."

"There'll be more at the other exits," Tal replied. "It's our only chance; the last place they'll expect us to show up is the main entrance! Think, man!"

Lippitt's gun was still firmly pointed at Tal's chest. "You know too goddamned much about this place to suit me," Lippitt said tensely.

Foster turned to me. "Who do we follow, Mongo?"

"Tal," I said quickly, without really knowing why.

Ignoring Lippitt's gun, Foster brushed past me and pushed the agent to one side. Gripping his wife's hand firmly, he started after Tal, who was already walking toward the open stairway at the far end of the corridor. Lippitt and I exchanged glances.

"You'd better have guessed right, Frederickson," Lippitt said ominously. His gun started to swing around, stopped just short of my forehead.

There didn't seem to be much sense in stopping to argue the point, so I ducked under the gun and started after Tal and the Fosters. Lippitt's footsteps came up quickly from behind me as a contingent of guards suddenly appeared on the stairs just above us. Tal grabbed the Fosters and pulled them to the floor while Lippitt squeezed three quick shots over our heads. The three men fell dead, each with a bullet hole placed precisely in the middle of his forehead.

As Elizabeth Foster started to scream and tremble, her husband scooped her up in his arms and ran up the stairs after Tal. Lippitt followed, and after grabbing a pistol from one of the dead guards, I brought up the rear. I almost bumped into Lippitt as I rounded a curve in the stairs. Tal, Lippitt, and the Fosters were crouched down, backs against the wall, while someone poured shots down the stairwell.

"Two of them," Lippitt barked. "Machine pistols. They've spotted us!"

I was still filled with the giddy, drunken feeling I'd been carrying with me since I'd left Kaznakov's charred, crackling corpse up on the third floor. I lunged up the stairs, leaped, twisted in the air, and pulled the trigger on my own gun. I fired blindly, both hands on the weapon. It must have been a red-letter day on my astrological chart, because I knew even before I landed hard on my back that I'd hit both of them. Tal suddenly appeared beside me. He finished the job with a gun he took from one of the guards, then motioned for the others to follow him. I saw that he was holding his left side.

"You all right?" I asked. Tal nodded. "Go!" I shouted as Foster paused beside me. "Get your wife out of here!"

It was Lippitt who stopped and yanked me to my feet. "Are you hit?"

"No," I gasped, sobbing for breath. "Just knocked the wind out of myself." With Lippitt dragging me by the sleeve, I struggled up the steps and through the pneumatic door above into a mass of milling, shouting bodies.

The wail of police and fire sirens was very loud now, almost drowning out everything else. The main entrance was perhaps sixty feet away, separated from us by a throng of Russians and firemen. The air was thick with smoke that was billowing down the elevator shafts and stairways.

Someone shouted in Russian, and two burly men who had been standing around as if awaiting orders craned their necks, saw us and drew their guns, started in our direction.

Tal and Lippitt stepped forward, and I joined them as Foster pushed through and a semicircle was formed around his wife. Foster had no gun, but he had his fists; he jabbed and feinted in the air as we inched forward.

I was staring up the barrel of a Russian gun as a red-faced fireman with an American flag sewn on his sleeve and a fire ax in his hands suddenly squeezed into the semicircle between Lippitt and me.

"Man, I don't know what you people are up to," the fireman said in a thick Brooklyn accent, "but anybody who's trying to get away from the Russkys has my help."

More firemen joined the circle, and our group began to move forward. The Russians, unwilling to shoot down New York firemen, backed away. In a few seconds we were at the main entrance. A human corridor of firemen's bodies was formed, and Elizabeth Foster went through it, followed by her husband, Tal, Lippitt, and me.

We were out of the consulate.