The Zenda Vendetta

12

“Make no sudden moves, Father,” Drakov said. “Keep your arms well away from your sides and stand perfectly still.”

Forrest saw Andre lying before him, tied down onto a cot. She was securely bound and her shirt was torn open at the shoulder where she had been treated for the wound made by the rappelling dart. She looked pale and weak. When she saw him, she pressed her lips together grimly and slowly shook ha head from side to side,

“Now, very slowly,” Drakov said, “turn around.”

With a gut-wrenching sensation, Forrester complied. It was a blow to him to see how strongly Drakov resembled his mother. He had the same lustrous, curly black hair and the same wide mouth. He had the same high cheekbones and patrician nose, the same dusky complexion, even his bearing was similar to hers, proud and languid, self-possessed. Yet the eyes, with their unwavering gaze, were his father’s eyes. Forrester saw that they were a brilliant emerald green, just like his own, deeply set and smouldering. He saw the long knife scar on his son’s cheek and thought of Falcon’s letter, of the taunting manner in which she had written of how he had received it. His knees felt weak suddenly and there was a pressing sensation in his chest. He looked at Drakov, standing by the wall and gazing at him coldly, aiming a laser directly at his midsection. My son, thought Forester. God help me. And God help him.

“Using only the fingertips of your left hand,” said Drakov, “remove your weapon and drop it to the floor; then remove your belt in the same manner.”

Forester did as he was told. He had tried to prepare himself for this, but it hadn’t helped. He felt physically ill. It was difficult to breathe.

“You will keep your hands spread out from your sides,” said Drakov. “I do not intend to risk searching you. If you have other weapons secreted on your person, be advised that if you make even the slightest motion, you will find yourself an amputee. You will move only when I tell you and exactly as I tell you. Is that clear?”

Forester nodded, hoping fervently that his emotions did not show.

“Now, move backward, slowly, until you are against that wall there,” Drakov said, indicating the direction with a nod of his head.

When Forester had done so, Drakov cautiously moved forward and picked up the items Forrester had dropped, placing them well out of reach without taking his eyes off Forrester for an instant. Forrester stood perfectly still with his back against the cold stone wall, his arms spread out as if for an embrace. The irony of this posture was not lost on him.

“What now, Son?” he said.

“Son,” said Drakov, bitterly. “How easily you say that.”

“You called me ‘Father’ easily enough.”

“No, not easily at all,” said Drakov, with a quiet intensity. “I’ve thought of you a great deal over all these many years, but that hasn’t made it any easier to call you ‘Father.’ Still, I have long dreamed of this moment. Falcon will be returning shortly. It should be quite an interesting reunion. Tell me, how does it feel to finally meet your son face to face?”

“It feels very sad,” said Forrester. “I pity you.”

“You can pity yourself,” said Drakov. “I am what you made me.”

“I didn’t make your choices for you,” Forrester said. “I am responsible for you but not for what you have become. I won’t take all the credit. Or the blame. You think your mother would have approved of the way that you turned out?”

Drakov tensed. “Why should you care? She meant little enough to you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. She meant a great deal to me. More than you will ever know.”

“Did she?” Drakov said, softly. “Is that why you abandoned her?”

“I had no other choice,” said Forrester, trying to keep his voice level. “I couldn’t take her with me and I couldn’t have remained with her, much as I wanted to. I tried to explain all that to her. I thought she understood. If you think that it didn’t hurt to have to leave her, not knowing what would become of her, or of you-”

“Spare me your rationalizations,” Drakov said, scornfully. “You shamed her, then left her when she needed you the most. Even then, she loved you. She died loving you. Yet, as I look at you now, I see no trace of the man she spoke of. I see only a pathetic old man trying to excuse his actions. You did not deserve her love.”

“I’m not trying to excuse anything, Nikolai,” said Forrester; feeling the sting of his son’s words. “I’m only telling you the truth. Not that I expect it to change anything. I can understand why you hate me. I don’t blame you for it. What I can’t understand is what that hate led you to become.”

“I seek neither your understanding nor your acceptance,” Drakov said with a hard edge to his voice. “I seek only justice.”

“This isn’t justice, Drakov.” Andre said. “I don’t think you realize just what’s at stake here. Falcon’s using you. This is more than a temporal disruption. You’ve endangered the timestream itself. It doesn’t have to be this way. If you’d only listen, if you’d only let us help you-”

“Help me?” Drakov said, speaking to her without taking his eyes off Forester even for an instant. “How would you propose to ‘help’ me? A reeducation procedure, is that what you had in mind? Is that what you mean? Help me to ‘adjust’? No, I don’t think so, Corporal Cross. I have been to your 27th century and I have seen its perversity firsthand. I will not have my mind, conditioned so that I would respond like some happy, brainwashed citizen of your great technocracy.”

“No one’s talking about brainwashing,” Andre said. “I’ve gone through it. It’s more like therapy than anything else. True, there are cases where personalities are altered, but that’s for psychotics. I don’t think you’re psychotic, Drakov. I think you’re just hurt. Reeducation can help you deal with that. It can make you understand why things happened the way they did.”

“I find the very idea obscene,” he said.

“And terrorism is not obscene?” said Forrester.

“Labeling me a terrorist makes it convenient for you to moralize, but otherwise, it’s meaningless. One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. History, I have learned, is written by the winners, not the losers. If the losers ever have anything to say, they merely make excuses for having lost, in order to cast themselves in the most favorable light. Unfortunately, what history does not say is that if there is obscenity in violence-and I am not denying that there is-there Is far greater obscenity in the fact that it is the only thing most people understand. Particularly your people. Mensinger tried using reason, did he not? Where did it get him? All I do is employ the only means left available to me in making war on war. If what I do becomes historically significant, then history will judge me. You, however, are in very poor position to pronounce judgment on my morality. Violence is your stock in trade.”

“Moses!” Lucas’s voice came over Forrester’s comset. “Damn it, Moses, I’m in a lot of trouble! Moses!”

Forrester could not respond. Drakov was watching him alertly and he could not risk moving to activate his throat mike.

“Moses, I don’t know if you’re receiving me, but if you’re not, I guess it doesn’t matter. They’ve got the whole interior of the old part of the castle rigged with defense systems. They have to be centrally controlled somehow, probably through some kind of remote unit. If you can’t get them turned off, I’ll never make it to the keep. Can you hear me. Moses? Colonel?”

“Stay put, Lucas,”

“Finn? Where are you?”

“In the castle, with Hentzau.”

“With Hentzau? What the hell-”

“What are you doing, play-actor?” Hentzau called out softly, seeing Finn hesitate in the corridor behind him. “Come on!”

“I’m coming,” Finn said. “Just catching my breath.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I can’t talk now, Lucas. The castle is about to be attacked. Stay put. I’ll try to get to those defense systems.”

“Come on, Rassendyll, damn you!” Hanna said. “Stop dawdling!”

This is it, thought Forrester. All the elements had come together and the key moment in temporal continuity had finally arrived. Only where was Falcon?

“In order to deactivate those systems,” Drakov said, “Sergeant Delaney will first have to deactivate me.”

He held up the control unit and Forrester abruptly realized that he had relieved Andre of her comset and was wearing it himself. He had heard every word.

As Hentzau stepped out into the main hall, De Gautet left his position of concealment behind an arras and raised his pistol, aiming it at Hanzau’s back.

“Stand where you are, Rupert!”

Hentzau stopped, then casually turned around. “Well, well,” he said, with unconcern. “What have we here? Dissension in the ranks?”

“Some men do not change sides as easily as you,” said De Gautet. “We feel that our interests would be better served allied with the duke, rather than with your ambitious countess.”

“I see,” said Hentzau. “Well then, if you’re going to shoot me, best be quick about it. There’s a man creeping up behind you.”

De Gautet laughed. “Really, Rupert, if you think-”

Finn seized him. He tried to grab the gun, but it went off, the shot echoing through the hall. As they struggled, Hentzau drew his sabre.

“Run, play-actor! Take care of the king! Leave this cowardly dog to me!”

Finn shoved De Gautet away from him and the man fell sprawling. Fully expecting Hentzau to run him through, he began to spring across the hall knowing that the shot would have alerted all the others. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw to his amazement that Hentzau had put his foot down upon the pistol and was waiting for De Gautet to get up and draw his sabre.

“What are you doing?” he shouted. “Kill him, for God’s sake!”

“It won’t take but a moment,” Hentzau called over his shoulder as the two men engaged.

Finn pulled out his own pistol aiming at De Gautet, but Hentzau kept moving into his line of fire. “Get out of the damn way!” he yelled.

“You’re wasting time, play-actor!” Hentzatt shouted. Cursing the arrogant young fool, Fern turned and ran headlong down the stairs, crashing into Krafstein, who was running up the stairs with his pistol drawn. They both went down and Finn lost his revolver as they rolled to the bottom of the stairs, onto the first landing. Krafstein flailed at him, but Firm brought his knee up sharply into the man’s groin, then rammed the heel of his palm up into his nose, breaking it and driving the bone splinters deep into the brain. Krafstein went limp and Finn shoved him away, reaching for his laser. He felt a sharp blow just below his left shoulder, beneath the collarbone. He raised his weapon and fired, hitting Detchard squarely in the face. Detchard screamed once, briefly, then fell dead.

Finn glanced down to see the hilt of a dagger protruding from his chest. He felt no pain. Not yet. He wondered if he would ever have the time.

“Stay put, my ass,” said Lucas. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”

He ran down the stairway to the next level, abandoning all caution. It had all come apart. He couldn’t raise Forrester and the attempt to rescue Rudolf was under way. For ail he knew, both Forrester and Andre were already dead. They had all run out of time. If he could only get to a window in the outside wall, he could dive out into the moat. Then, as the castle was assaulted, he could try to take advantage of the confusion to get in the only way that was left open to him: the drawbridge to the portcullis. It would be better to face a hail of bullets from Michael’s mercenaries than to take his chalices with laser beams and needle dart barrages and God only knew what else. He turned a corner and an auto-pulser opened up on him.

He felt a searing pain in his thigh as the blast of plasma grazed him and a wave of incredible heat passed close to his head. He just barely managed to duck back around the corner in time. The stone walls were covered with blue flame. His clothing was smoldering and he smelled cooked meat. His own. The skin on the entire right side of his face felt as though it had ban ripped away. It was roasted, cracked and blistered from the temple all the way down to his jaw. He could not see out of his right eye. He reached up gingerly and felt liquid seeping down his cheek.

The pain was unbearable. He leaned back against the stone wall for support, gasping, slamming his left hand hard into the wall in a desperate effort to focus on some other part of his body, to keep the pain from blotting out everything else. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a warp grenade. They were issued only to the adjustment teams, only one per team, and they were to be used only as a last, desperate resort in case of an emergency. This qualified. Perhaps the review board wouldn’t think-so, assuming that he made it back, but at the moment, he could not careless. All bets were off.

Finn stepped over the body of Detchard and aimed his laser at the lock on the cell door. The knife still protruded from his chat. He did not dare to pull it out. It could be the only thing holding an artery together. He half expected to drop dead at any moment. He reeled and almost fell. He couldn’t seem to make his fingers respond.

Damn, he thought, now it finally gets to me! With a knife stuck in his chest, the reserves of energy he had been functioning on finally gave out and he was on the verge of collapse. His limbs simply were not responding: He felt lice a marionette with its strings cut. He was beginning to disassociate. He had to buy himself more time.

Using all his concentration, he removed the small ring from his left hand. It felt as though he were drunk, unable to coordinate his movements. He managed to work the tiny catch and the needle snapped out. With everything swimming all around him, he pressed the needle up against his neck and injected the tiny dose of nitro directly into his carotid artery. The effect wasp instantaneous. It felt as though he had injected himself with white phosphorous as the nitro slammed into his brain.

“Aaargh!” He jerked bolt upright, ready to tear the door down with his bare hands, ready to attack the stone walls with his teeth. He steadied his right hand with his left, trying to keep it from shaking.

“Finn! Finn, where are you?”

“Outside the king’s cell with the top of my fucking head coming off!”

“What? Oh, Christ, are you on nitro?”

“Hell, yes!”

He fired his laser at the lock.

“You’d better move it, then. I’m about to make a lot of noise up here.”

“What’s going on? You sound terrible. Are you all right?”

“No, but I might live. Hold your ears. I’m setting off a warp grenade.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Probably. Good luck. I’m out.”

Finn burned through the lock and kicked the door open.

Rudolf slowly raised himself from his cot “Cousin Rudolf! I heard shots! Are…” his voice trailed off when he saw the knife. His eyes grew wider still. “Good Lord, man, you’ve been stabbed!”

“Never mind me,” said Finn, practically lifting him off the cot. “Can you walk?”

“You say that to me with a knife stuck in your chest? It is I who should be helping you! ”

“Well, let’s see if we can help act other stay alive long enough for Sapt and von Tarlenheim to reach us. We’re not out of danger yet.”

De Gautet’s sabre scraped against Hentzau’s blade, as he bore down on it and De Gautet’s eyes were wide with panic. He knew he was no match for Hentzau. Healso knew that the shot would, bring the others and he was hoping desperately that they would come before Hentzau finished him off. He cave way to Hentzau’s pressure and leapt backward, forcing Hama off balance momentarily, but Hentzau’s recovery was swift. However, it bought De Gautet enough time to unsheath his dagger and hurl it at him. Hentzau dodged it and it missed him by inches, striking the wall behind him and falling to the floor.

“Ah ha!” cried Hentzau. “Close, but not close enough! I’m afraid I have no more time for you, my friend. It’s too bad you didn’t throw in with me.”

“No, Rupert, please-”

Hentzau took his own dagger and threw it with a quick and easy motion. It plunged into De Gautet’s chest. De Garnet’s hands came up to clutch at it. He staggered one step forward and collapsed onto the floor. As Hentzau turned to run to the drawbridge and release it, a pistol shot cracked sharply and he felt the bullet pass close by his ear.

“Stop, Hentzau, or the next one shall not miss!”

Hentzau slowly turned around to see Michael standing with Lauengram on the stairs leading to the second floor, his pistol leveled at him. Michael’s face was livid with fury. He lisped slightly from missing the teeth that Falcon had knocked out.

“This does not seem to be my night,” said Henan, to himself. He thought that he could probably make a dive and manage to release the drawbridge, but he would certainly be killed in the attempt, and that was not his plan at all. His one chance was to stall and hope for rescue by the play-actor.

“Don’t be too eager to finish me off, Your Lordship,” he said to Michael. “Yon have enemies without. You’ll need help. Perhaps we can come to terms.”

“I do not deal with traitors!” Michael said. “I should have had you and Sophia killed when I first suspected your affair! Where is that treacherous slut?”

“Right here,” said Falcon, standing in the archway that led to the old section of the castle. She fired her laser and the beam struck Michael in the chest. His gun went off, but the shot was wild and he was already dead when he fell headlong down the stairs. Her second shot dropped a stunned and disbelieving Lauengram, who tumbled down the stairs to land in a heap on top of Michael.

Hentzau, stared at her in astonishment, the drawbridge momentarily forgotten. “The devil!” as said, awestruck. “How did you do that? What manner of weapon…” he stopped in mid-phrase as she turned toward him and aimed the laser at his chest.

Lucas held the warp grenade in his right hand, hesitating. He had never actually used one before. He was fully briefed on them and had trained with simulators, but the thought of setting off a pinpoint nuclear explosion gave him pause. Still, he had no other choice. He was badly hurt, he had only one eye left and the plasma burns were throbbing, causing him terrific pain. He wasn’t sure just how much radiation he would catch. Supposedly, it would not be lethal. Supposedly.

The grenade, a miniature bomb really, was preset. All it took was for him to arm it, then either place it manually or throw it just like a hand grenade. It was the latest in 27 ^th century weapons technology, a diabolical combination of nuclear device and time machine. It scared the hell out of him.

At the moment of detonation, the miniaturized chronocircuits created a Einstein-Rosen Bridge, or warp, with the result that the major force of the explosion was instantaneously clocked through time and space to the Orion Nebula, where such events were naturally commonplace. What would remain in his own immediate time and space would effectively constitute a pinpoint nuclear explosion, intensely concentrated, creating total devastation in a confined area that, theoretically, could be as small as a fingernail. Theoretically. In practice, they had not refined them that far yet. This one would be larger. Considerably larger.

Lucas swallowed hard and armed the device. He set it for air burst, then set the timer. His tongue licked at his cracked and blistered lips. He wondered if this was what it felt like for the bombardier on the Enola Gay. He shut his one remaining eye, counted to three, fobbed the grenade around the corner and dropped down onto the floor, covering his head with his arms and praying to God it worked just like the boys in Ordnance said it would. There was a blinding flash of white light, followed by a devastating roar.

“You always were too damned unpredictable, Rupert,” Falcon raid, pointing her laser at him. “It really is unfortunate. I thought you were rather nice and I was going to let you live.”

“Wait,” said Hentzau. “I can still help you. I can-”

“You can only interfere. You’ve become expendable. I’m sorry.”

“Before you kill me,” Hentzau said, stalling desperately, “at least tell me what that is. I’ve never seen such-”

“It doesn’t mater, Rupert. It wouldn’t make any difference to you, anyway. Say goodbye.”

The explosion rocked the castle. Startled, Falcon jerked her head in its direction and Hentzau moved. She fired, missing him narrowly as he leaped aside and in that moment, Rudolf hit with an awkward tackle and she fell, the laser skittering across the floor. Hentzau quickly snatched it up. Finn stood with his own laser leveled at Falcon and Rudolf as they thrashed upon the floor, but refrained from firing for fear of hitting the king.

“Rudolf, get away!” he shouted.

Falcon rolled over on her back, dragging the king on top of her, holding him with one arm around his neck, the other locked behind his head.

“Drop the laser, Delaney, or I’ll break his neck!” she said.

Finn fairly vibrated from the nitro hammering through him, but his shirt was soaked with blood and his vision was beginning to blur, “Break his neck and where does that leave you?” he said.

“Who the devil is Delaney?” Hentzau said. He glanced down at the laser. “Where the deuce is the trigger on this thing?”

“Kill him, Rupert!”

“Realty?” Henan said, insouciantly. “How? Besides, if I kill him, you’ll kill the king and where would that leave me? I’d be left with one dead play-actor, one dead king, one dead duke and what must be a small army just outside. No, that would never do. I must come out of this ahead somehow.”

“I can make you rich, Rupert,” she said. “Richer than you could ever imagine! There’s a small stud that fires-”

“Don’t do it, Hentzau,” Finn said. “I’d have to kill you.”

Hentzau examined the weapon with curiosity. “Strange-looking contraption. You mean this stud here?”

“Hentzau, if I don’t kill you, you can be sure she will. She doesn’t need you,” Finn said. “Don’t be a fool.”

“Shoot him, Rupert! Shoot!”

Hentzau held the laser the way he had seen her hold it, with his finger on the stud, then he came up to her and bent over, putting the weapon up against the side of her head.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but since the play-actor’s thrown in with the king, I think that I’d best do the same. The odds seem better to me. Be so kind as to release His Majesty.”

“Good man, Hentzau!” Finn said. “Now we-” his knees buckled and he sank down to the floor. “Oh, no!” he said. “Not now!”

He fell over on his side, unconscious.

Lucas huddled on the floor, holding his head from the concussion of the explosion. Fine dust filled the air with swirling fog and there was crumbled stone all around him. He sat up slowly, his ears ringing, to see if he was still in one piece. He was lacerated and bruised and burned in more places than he could count and he had no idea how much radiation he had received. His entire body hurt and he could barely see straight.

The corridor where the auto-pulser had been was gone. Completely gone. The cool night breeze that came in through the gaping, massive hole where the wall had been was a welcome relief from the musty atmosphere of the ancient castle corridors. Lucas got to his feet unsteadily and lurched over to the opening. The moat was directly beneath him. He took a deep breath and fell forward into space.

They heard the explosion at the opposite end of the castle.

“What in heaven’s name was that?” said Drakov, his eyes never leaving Forrester, despite his being startled by t he sound. His whole body stiffened.

“A warp grenade,” said Forrester. “It seems that Priest isn’t out of it yet.”

Drakov shook his head, having no idea what a warp grenade was. It sounded as if it had blown half the castle away. “Your people certainly possess a dogged persistence,” he said. “Very resourceful. My compliments. You’ve trained them well. I admire such determination.”

“Then give it its due,” said Forrester. “You have the upper hand. Let Andre go. She’s no threat to you now. I’m the one you really want.”

“True,” said Drakov, “but Falcon wants you all.”

“Assuming that she’s still alive,” said Forrester. “If she’s managed to kill the king, then chances are that it’s all over anyway. You’ve won. You’ve got what you wanted.”

“Why should I release her?”

“Colonel-” Andre said.

“Shut up, Corporal. That’s an order,” Forrester said sharply. “Your quarrel is with me, Nikolai. Everything that’s happened here in one way or another is my responsibility. This is a private matter between the two of us. Leave her out of it. You have nothing to gain by killing her now and nothing to lose by letting her go.”

“Moses, don’t-”

“I said shut up!” snapped Forester. “Nikolai, please. I’m begging you. You want me to get down on my knees?”

“Enough,” said Drakov. “I have no stomach to see you beg.”

“Do you have the stomach to see what Falcon will probably do to her?” said Forrater. “You really think that she’ll be satisfied with a quick kill? Look at her. She’s already weak from loss of blood. She probably couldn’t even stand up. But Falcon is a trained agent, a skilled assassin. She’ll be able to keep her alive for a long time before she’s finished.”

“Yes, I believe she would,” said Drakov, quietly.

“I’m not asking you for myself,” said Forrester. “Remember how your mother died. Remember how you tried to help and couldn’t.”

Drakov turned pale. “How did you know that?”

“Falcon, told me all about it in a letter,” said Forester, heavily. “She didn’t spare me much. She seemed to take a lot of pleasure in reconstructing the graphic details of the scene from what you must have told her. Undoubtedly, she embellished a great deal. Somehow, I can’t imagine you describing her being raped in quite that manner.”

Drakov gritted his teeth. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Turn around,” he said.

Forrester hesitated for a moment, then complied, slowly turning his back to him, facing the stone wail. He heard a muffled sob.

“The chronoplate is beneath her cot,” he said. “I will give you the sequence code for its tailgate device. Set the coordinates for your time and send her home.”

“No!” said Andre. “Moses, you can’t-”

Forrester reached out quickly and rendered her unconscious with a nerve pinch. Then, under his son’s direction, he deactivated the tailgate device on the chronoplate, assembled the border circuits, programmed the transition coordinates, and clocked her to Plus Time, to Pendleton Base. Then he turned to face his son,

“Here,” said Drakov, tossing him the control unit. “If Major Priest is still alive, then perhaps this will give him a fighting chance.”

Forrester turned off the defense systems, then tossed the unit onto the cot. It would end here and now, one way or another. Perhaps they had failed and it was all pointless, anyway. But his son was his responsibility. He would have liked to take out Falcon, but if she did not return in the next moment, he would be forced to leave her to Priest and Delaney, assuming they were still alive. He could wait no longer. At least Andre was clear.

Drakov lowered the laser and, to Forrester’s astonishment, dropped it on the floor.

“We shall settle this like gentlemen,” he said, as Forester stared at him uncomprehendingly. “You have dishonored my mother, sir. I demand satisfaction. The choice of weapons is yours.”

Forrester closed his eyes. He was seized by a sudden, irrational impulse to laugh. A duel. His son was challenging him to a duel.

“I fear that we have no sabres here,” said Drakov, “but we have the lasers and a number of revolvers. Or, if you prefer, wean use knives.”

Forrester smiled, ruefully. “What would you suggest?”

“Under the circumstances, I would favor knives,” said Drakov. “The room is quite small and would provide for no proper test of marksmanship.”

Forrester sighed and shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, softly. “God damn it, I just can’t.”

“You refuse me?” said Drakov, frowning.

“No. No, I don’t have that right, Son,” he said. “You misunderstood. I have a small device strapped to my chest beneath my shirt. It contains a nerve gas, very quick and very lethal.”

“I see,” said Drakov. “That is why you were so concerned about Corporal Cross.”

“Give me a moment,” said Forrester, “and I’ll remove it.”

Drakov nodded and started taking off his own shirt as Forrester removed his. As Forrester disarmed the device and took it off, Drakov tossed aside his shirt, revealing a massive, muscular chest, powerful arms and rock-hard abdominals. He took two knives, both daggers with ten inch blade, and offered Forrester his choice.

It was almost dawn.