Vortex

Chapter Ten

“We’ve got him, sir,” the COBRA operations chief said, holding the car door open for Trench.

Trench climbed out flanked by the Twin Bears. He was facing a broken-down hotel called the Shangri-La on West Forty-third Street near the Avenue of the Americas. He should have known the boy would have run to this area to seek the camouflage of other youths.

“The homing device fizzled out three hours ago but not before leading us to the general area,” the COBRA man continued. “The hotel clerk remembers renting a room to a boy meeting his description last night. Room 626.”

Trench looked around him, checked his watch: 9:20. The work-day was just beginning.

“How many men have you got?”

“A dozen. I ordered four more just to be on the safe side.”

“Good,” Trench said without enthusiasm, leery somehow of the task they were about to undertake. Something didn’t feel right. He couldn’t get thoughts of the strange five dollar bill from yesterday out of his mind. He pulled off his overcoat and tossed it into the back seat of the car, surveying the scene. “We’ll move in on my signal,” he told the COBRA operations chief. “Deploy your men to ensure all exits are covered. I’ll handle the recovery myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

The COBRA operations chief took his leave, spitting orders into a walkie-talkie. Trench nodded to the Twin Bears and started moving toward the Shangri-La.

Davey Phelps watched the tall, well-dressed man approaching the entrance from the slit in the drawn blinds over his window. At first glance the man looked old, but closer inspection revealed this to be a false impression based only on his thinning, gray hair. The tall man stepped lightly with the spring of an athlete, gliding across the pavement in an evenly measured pace. That he was coming for him, Davey did not doubt. Nor did he doubt that the ten or so other well-dressed men were converging on the area for the same reason.

It had been a restless night that ended about an hour ago when The Vibes drove him from the bed. The feeling of the Men was stronger than ever, so Davey dressed and inched his way toward the steps only to find one of them perched in the lobby and two more outside the thick glass of the hotel’s front door. Cautiously, he made his way back to his room. He considered the fire escape only long enough for The Vibes to tell him the Men had that covered too.

They had found him.

And this tall one was different from the others. Davey couldn’t get into his mind, just as he hadn’t been able to get into the mind of the big man who had chased him in Rockefeller Center the day before. The blue-suited figure radiated dark coldness and the two red-headed giants walking by his side radiated nothing at all.

Davey felt the tug of desperation inside him. It had been fun for a while, adventurous. But now he missed his foster parents and the home they had made for him. He wanted to go back to them, wanted to take a shower where he didn’t have to keep his eyes trained on the bathroom doorknob. His clothes felt dirty and moist now, stuck to his skin by the sweat of fear.

Davey moved away from the window and pulled on his leather jacket.

Outside, the Men grouped, moved in. The tall cold one stood on the sidewalk below, looking up.

Davey’s eyes grew wet. His knees and fingers trembled. He tried to make The Vibes show him what they had in store for him once he was captured. They wouldn’t show him anything, though, when he tried too hard. They came when they wanted to and right now they were nowhere to be found.

The Men had him and there was no escape.

Out of the hopelessness came his way out. He felt The Chill rising up his spine, the strongest he’d felt, the sensation driving him to moan and close his eyes. He saw what he had to do, and somehow he knew he had the power to do it.

The Chill swelled in him, a rising tide of water seeking escape from the dam that pins it.

Davey squeezed his eyes shut and focused his mind on the whole surrounding block. The veins near his temples began to pulsate.

Outside, the air seemed to buckle.

Davey squeezed his eyes still tighter, reached out with The Chill as far as his mind would let him. A jackhammer went off in his head as he let it go. It poured out of him with enough force to slam him back against the wall, and Davey thought if he looked in the mirror he would see his head expanded to maybe three times its normal size. Then his ears were gripped by a dreadful ringing, and it took an instant for him to realize it was coming from outside, not in.

Every fire alarm on the block had been triggered, on every floor and in every room. Then burglar alarms joined the crazed chorus and continued despite the determined attempts of their befuddled owners to shut them off.

People spilled into the street, hordes of them, mixing with the already busy pedestrian traffic to form a mass so tight those in it had difficulty breathing.

Trench, who had started into the hotel when the alarms sounded, now found himself shoved back by an escaping throng, and he became separated from the Twin Bears. COBRA personnel screamed futilely into their walkie-talkies, hearing nothing through the wailing alarms and knowing that their words similarly reached no one. Cut off from a central command, they had no idea how to proceed, so they held their ground in the mindless hope that the boy whose photograph they held might walk right into them.

Davey Phelps joined the flow of people leaving the hotel, passing close enough to the cold man to smell his after-shave. The throng pushed into the street amid halted traffic, and then across it to better view the screaming fire engines drawing closer with each blast of their horns.

By this time Davey had stripped off his jacket, because most of the people forced from the surrounding buildings hadn’t bothered to grab theirs. Mixing with the crowd, he eventually slid behind a fire engine that had just screeched to a halt, and joined a large mass of high school students taking in the festivities, his escape virtually complete.

A bus squealed to a halt just across the block. Davey rushed to it, dodging between the snarled traffic, knowing once he was on board he was as good as gone. He had climbed three of the bus’s steps and was digging in his jeans for the right change when his balance wavered. He grabbed the handrail.

“Hey, kid,” the driver blurted, “in or out, okay?”

But Davey didn’t hear him. The Vibes had struck.

The bus felt hot to him, hot with panic and desperation. He heard screams, saw twisted metal, smelled something burning, saw … blood.

“Kid?”

Davey pushed himself backward, found the cement but didn’t feel it.

“Jesus Christ,” from the bus driver and the door hissed closed.

Davey’s legs felt wobbly. He leaned against a No-Parking sign to steady himself and followed the bus’s progress.

The driver sped up to make it through a yellow light across Avenue of the Americas. There were so many alarms and sirens still blaring that he never heard the one meant to warn him.

The ladder truck struck the bus broadside at forty miles per hour, shoving it across the road with a maddening shriek. The bus buckled, spun, and toppled over on its side, sliding onto the sidewalk and crushing two unfortunate bystanders against a building.

Davey’s ears were filled with screams now, instead of sirens. The relief the crowd felt upon realizing there were no fires was soon replaced by true panic. Just as hundreds of alarms were finally turned off, the screams reached a crescendo to take their place.

Davey staggered away. His head felt crunched on the inside, as if somebody were tightening a vise on his brain. But he swallowed the pain down and kept walking, pressing ahead.

Sometime later he found himself on Seventh Avenue with no memory of how he got there. He was sweating cold bullets under his leather jacket, and could still feel his fingers trembling and teeth clicking together.

Davey passed a sidewalk fortuneteller, a minor crowd enclosing him.

“The future lies in the cards,” the fortuneteller announced, pulling a deck from his baggy jacket pocket. “Who is brave enough to learn what the cards hold for him, what the future holds?” Deftly he separated the deck before him.

Davey joined the crowd.

“Need a volunteer, need a volunteer.” His eyes locked with Davey’s. He spread the cards out in a fan shape. “How ’bout you, young—”

The fortuneteller’s face went white. The fan of cards started to collapse, then broke apart flying everywhere. People booed, laughed, applauded. The fortuneteller staggered backward against a building.

Davey turned away and then glanced behind him. What had happened? What had the fortuneteller seen in his eyes? He continued on.

“The time has come for all God’s children to be saved! You hear me, brothers, the time has come to be saved!”

The blaring voice froze Davey in his tracks. For an instant he thought it was directed only at him. Then he saw a black man with white hair holding a cheap wireless microphone as he stood over a yard-high amplifier.

“Give yourself up to God, brothers!” he droned on. “Rebirth! I’m offering you a chance to give in to the power of the Lord!”

Davey moved closer, stopped.

“You won’t worry about your boss or your wife or your husband. All your problems will vanish before the Lord because He is all that matters and He will take care of you. Learn a new and better life. Give yourself up to Him, be reborn, let yourself go into His court and see the only truth, the only love!”

Davey moved a bit closer.

“Brothers, I—”

The amplifier whined crazily — feedback. The black preacher threw his hands over his ears.

“Brothers—”

There was more feedback, worse this time. The crowd backed away. The black preacher tossed the cheap microphone dramatically aside.

“This is the work of the devil, brothers. He is among us even now.” The black man’s eyes scanned the crowd. “He walks the streets in clothes hiding his scales in the guise of a man”—his eyes stopped at Davey—“… or a boy.” The preacher’s mouth dropped. His lips trembled. “Lord have mercy, the devil is here among us! It’s you, boy, you’re the devil!” He thrust a stubby finger forward, started toward Davey, and stopped suddenly as though blocked by a brick wall. “The devil! That boy is Satan himself! God help us, help us all!”

The black preacher collapsed to his knees. A number of eyes turned curiously toward the boy.

Davey had already moved away, across the street.

First the fortuneteller, then the preacher.

What had they seen? What did they know? What had they felt? …

Davey quickened his pace although he had nowhere to go. He wondered if he had something even worse than the Men to fear.

“Have you got the boy, Trench?” Colonel Chilgers’ voice filled the car.

“I’m afraid not.”

“What?”

Chilgers listened in somber silence to Trench’s report, a part of him clearly excited. “I find much of that difficult to believe,” he said at the end.

“So did I. But this makes three separate incidents. First, your man in the airport claimed the boy just wasn’t there anymore; then, the matter of the five dollar bill yesterday; and now this. I should have suspected something earlier.”

“You should have reported the bill incident to me last night.”

“Perhaps.”

“In any case, if your suspicions are correct, this boy seems to have picked up some rather interesting abilities which he didn’t possess until Flight 22 landed in New York. Most interesting….”

“It will no longer be a simple task to recover him,” Trench said.

“But it’s all the more important now that we do. The homing beacon’s worn out, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll have to find an alternate means of tracking him down.”

“I’ve got a few ideas. I’ll need the full resources of your computers, though.”

“They’re yours.”

“And I’m going to require more men.”

“How many?”

“Thirty.”

“You can have as many as you want if they’ll help bring in that boy. I want him, Trench, I want him.”

The phone clicked off.

Trench leaned back, his face blank and emotionless. He would obey the colonel’s orders only up to a point: he would find the boy, but could not risk capturing him. Even if he were successful, how long could he hold Davey Phelps before the boy’s yet uncomprehended powers went to work? Furthermore, he knew he wouldn’t be working for Chilgers much longer and didn’t want to put a weapon of the boy’s potential in the colonel’s hands. Either way, his own survival was at stake.

So he would find the boy.

And he would kill him.

Chilgers looked up from his desk into the curious stares of Dr. Teke and Professor Metzencroy. The colonel had suspected there might be something in Trench’s report he’d want the two men to hear first-hand and his intuition had paid off. Of the two, Metzencroy appeared more affected by the conversation just piped in through an amplifier. His hands were so jittery that he nearly missed his brow with his handkerchief on at least two occasions. Teke took it all in pensively, at most a glimmer of perspiration appearing on his bald dome.

“All right, gentlemen,” Chilgers opened. “I want to know what you make of all this.”

“Well,” Teke responded, “earlier experiments in secondary stages of Vortex have indicated the possible effect of the energy fields we’re dealing with — high frequency electromagnetization — on the human organism. We have, in fact, noted a number of possible — and I emphasize possible — changes in brain function and body chemistry, up to and including severe neurological imbalances. But to say that this boy’s participation in the tangent stage of Vortex in any way relates to whatever … power he may possess is clearly unfounded.”

Metzencroy cleared his throat.

“You take issue with that, Professor?” Chilgers prodded, hoping he would.

Metzencroy leaned forward and tried to pocket his handkerchief. His trembling fingers almost precluded the effort. “The mind, Colonel, consists mostly of vastly unexplored territory. Some men of science have even suggested that we know more about the outer reaches of space than we do about the gray matter which inhabits our own heads. An exaggeration perhaps, but there is something to be said for the position. If conservatively we understand, say, five percent of the brain’s operating process, its capabilities, what about the other ninety-five? Similarly, many in our field believe we only utilize that same five percent of our brain’s capacity. Again, what about the remaining ninety-five?” Metzencroy pulled his handkerchief from his pocket again and closed his hand around it. “It is quite conceivable, Colonel, that exposure to the Vortex fields has given life to a previously dormant part of this boy’s brain which may explain this strange power he has developed.”

Teke’s round face was drawn into a frown. “It sounds to me, Professor, as if you’re abandoning logic and scientific principle in favor of spirits and poltergeists.”

Chilgers leaned forward. “If spirits and poltergeists could help us destroy the Russians, then I’d be all for them, Teke.”

“There’s something else we must consider,” Metzencroy said hesitantly. “Once any previously unexplored territory is uncovered, in the mind or anywhere else, it tends to expand — that is, grow — as we look for more.”

“The point?” from Chilgers.

“Is that the power this boy possesses is almost certain to grow stronger as more of his brain opens up. He is exploring it now tentatively, unsurely. Once he gains confidence, there is no telling the extent to which he might develop it.”

Intrigued, Chilgers had to bury a smile. “Speculate further.”

“I’m afraid I can’t … not on this anyway.” Metzencroy’s handkerchief found its way back to his brow; then it slipped from his fingers. He was barely able to retrieve it, his hands were trembling so much.

“What else is bothering you, Professor?” Chilgers wondered.

Metzencroy steadied himself. “To continue my analogy of the mind to the universe, several problems are raised. Something has happened to David Phelps which we in no way expected or could have predicted. The mind of one boy is one thing, the entire universe something else again. But in this case they are very much the same, and we must consider the potential ramifications of any future actions we undertake.”

“By actions,” Chilgers concluded, “you mean Vortex.”

“I mean we are dealing in areas we don’t fully understand, areas whose mysteries are not even close to being entirely revealed to us. Ancient man discovered fire only to have it consume many of the trees from which his food came until he learned to harness it.”

“You would’ve preferred that he just left it alone and stayed cold, I suppose,” Teke chided.

Metzencroy held his stare. “The consequences are considerably more than a few trees with Vortex.”

“It was necessity that brought man down from the trees to begin with,” put forth Chilgers.

“And fear drove him back up on more than one occasion,” added Metzencroy.

“I hope all this is getting you somewhere,” snapped Teke.

Metzencroy hesitated. “I want to know what has given David Phelps his new power … and I want to know what caused the bubble on Flight 22 five days ago.”

“Not that again,” muttered Teke. “It was computer flutter, nothing more.”

“Then explain how the computers don’t remember it. Explain how the entire energy-matter field surrounding the jet seemed to blink for a brief instant without cause or explanation. Answer me that, Doctor!”

Teke didn’t.

“The fabric of our universe does not function all that differently from the fabric of David Phelps’s brain. Something has altered the boy’s brain now and if Vortex is moved into final activation, the fabric of our universe might be similarly altered.”

“So we’ll all be running around changing five-dollar bills into hundreds.” Teke chuckled. “Beats the hell out of inflation.”

Metzencroy wasn’t amused. His fist clenched over his moist handkerchief. “The timespace continuum is nothing to joke about, Doctor. We are dealing with forces here that—”

“Will assure us of world supremacy for hundreds of years to come,” cut in Chilgers. “Are you suggesting we abandon Vortex in the face of that, Professor?”

“Postpone it perhaps.”

“Considering the timetable, that amounts to much the same thing, doesn’t it?” Chilgers leaned back in his leather chair, looked at Metzencroy and through him. “I’ve already watched us squander one advantage with the atom bomb and I’m not about to allow the same mistake to be repeated. We’ve been caught in a loop since the Cold War, Professor. We design and design, build and build, revamp and revise. But it doesn’t matter, none of it does, because up till now it’s all been a stalemate. The term first strike really doesn’t exist because the best either side has ever been able to hope for is a simultaneous strike. But Vortex has changed all that. We have a means to break the loop, Professor, and break the stalemate. We’ve been given a second chance to do what we should have done twenty-five years ago but lacked the decisiveness to do. We will activate Vortex on our own in five days to avoid a similar debacle. There’s only room for one superpower in this nuclear world we’ve created where high school students can build bombs out of chemistry sets.”

Metzencroy felt the heat rising behind his cheeks, and was aware that his face was reddening.

“And I’ll tell you something else, Professor,” Chilgers went on. “We’re going to find out where this Phelps boy gets his power from, we’re going to find out if we have to pick his brain apart piece by piece. Because the Russians don’t have him, the Chinese don’t have him, nobody has him except us. The boy is ours.”

Chapter Eleven

Bane arrived at the Center at ten o’clock sharp and went straight to Janie’s office.

“Close the door behind you,” she said, after he had stepped inside.

“Sounds serious.” He moved toward one of the vinyl chairs before her desk.

“Stealing information from government computers usually is.”

“Just borrowing, Janie, and for a good cause.” He forced a smile, hoping to get one back from her.

None came.

“You’re not gonna like it, Josh.”

Bane sat down. “What’s the latest on Trench?”

“There is none.”

“What?”

“U.S. Intelligence’s file on him has been removed from the active list. Maybe he’s dead.”

“Then his file would be cross-referenced for contacts, not deactivated.”

“He might have retired,” Janie said, grasping.

Bane shook his head. “Not Trench.”

“That doesn’t leave many alternatives.”

“Just one by my count,” Bane told her. “He’s working for us now, some branch of our government.”

“Could that be?”

“Uncle Sam doesn’t hold grudges, Janie. Trench is a professional. If some agency of this government had need for his services, they’d get them.”

“Then why deactivate his file?”

“Because if he’s working for us, they’d want to keep a tight lid on it. Those files exist to keep regular track of all opposing agents’ movements. That would be superfluous if Trench was one of ours now. They also wouldn’t want any free-lancers sniffing out his trail, or people who do hold grudges.”

“Like Harry?”

“Like Harry.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“The truth.”

“Do you think that’s smart?”

“Probably not, but when you start lying to your friends it doesn’t leave you with much.” Bane hesitated, eager to change the subject. “Any way of figuring out which branch Trench is working out of?”

“Possibly, but it’ll take some time.”

“Then don’t bother. Harry’s got a lot of favors owed him in the network. It’s about time he called some of them in.”

“You’re not talking like a friend of his, Josh,” Janie scolded, her eyes angry. “That poor guy’s probably gonna walk off — excuse me—wheel off to get himself killed and you’re just going to stand there.”

“If I stand anywhere, it’ll be by his side. I owe Harry that much.”

“Then you want him to go after Trench so you can go too and get rid of some of that guilt you carry around with you.”

“Maybe,” Bane conceded because there was no sense trying to explain further. There was no way he could expect Janie to understand men like himself and the Bat, the way they lived and died. The rules were different and so were the values. There was a code to consider.

“Well you know something, Josh? Harry may move around with no legs but sometimes you move around with no heart. Chalk them both up as war wounds, I suppose, and make sure the government keeps the checks coming. But what’s different about the two of you is that the wounds don’t seem to matter. Even if they don’t heal, you keep on going. I guess scar tissue doesn’t bleed.”

Janie could have gone on but chose not to. This was a different man before her now, more stranger than lover. She could fight to reach him, get him back, but the futility of trying stifled the attempt before she even made it. She had always known this part of Joshua Bane existed, lurking below the surface, beyond her control and her love. Nonetheless, seeing it now unnerved her; the clarity of its intentions and resolve were so chilling — foreign. The part of Joshua Bane she loved might return someday but she wasn’t counting on it.

Bane called Harry Bannister at I–Com-Tech from an open office across the hall.

“I’ve got the list you asked for, Josh,” the Bat announced.

“I’d like you to add something to it. Reference profiles: age, occupation, residence — all the usual material.”

“Looking for something that links them together, eh?”

“You read my mind, Harry.”

“Well Lord fuck a duck, Josh, you’ve always been an open book to me.” The Bat hesitated. “And what about your part of the bargain?”

“You sure you want it, Harry?”

“I’m sure.”

“Trench is in America.”

“No shit! That fucker’s come over to our side now?”

“Apparently.”

“All the easier for me to burn him. I’m not much of a traveler.”

“He might be protected.”

“My ass. The man ain’t been born yet, Josh, who can protect Trench from one of my knives. That fucker stole my legs and now I’m gonna get even.”

“You’ll still have to find out what branch he’s working out of.”

“No sweat. I’ll make a few calls. I’ll get to that as soon as I run a check on these sixty-seven names on your passenger manifest. Give me about an hour.”

Bane checked his watch. “I’ll be there at eleven.”

Harry the Bat peeked out from his I–Com-Tech cubicle as Bane glided across the carpet toward him.

“Good morning, Josh, and this is a good morning if ever they made one.”

From the neck up, this was the same man who had almost died with him ten times over in Vietnam, the same man who’d taken a blast of double-aught shot meant for him in Berlin five years ago.

“Looking quite chipper today, Harry.”

“Lord fuck a duck, Josh, do you blame me? I’ve finally got my chance to nail Trench.”

“Your contacts come through?”

“Not yet. But they will.”

“Keep me informed.”

“Like the old days, Winter Man, just like the old days. I’m packing a set of extra knives today.”

“I’ll remember to keep my distance.”

The Bat opened the top drawer of his desk and withdrew two sets of green and white computer paper.

“The fatter one’s got the profiles on it too,” he explained.

Bane took the pile and sat in the chair squeezed against the side of the white cubicle. The other cubicles hadn’t been provided with such a luxury but then Harry didn’t have any use for the seat ordinarily placed behind the desk, hence the spare. Bane scanned the passenger manifest for possible familiarity, found none, and then turned his attention to skimming the reference profiles.

“These weren’t easy to cop, Josh. Tough little fuckers, they were.”

Bane looked up. “What do you mean?”

“The airline had put a lock on the manifest for starters. I had to use my key.”

“Problems?”

“Not directly. Except it won’t be hard for whoever turned the lock to trace the lifting back to me.”

“I don’t like that, Harry. You should have checked with me on it first.”

“Have no fear, the Bat is back.”

“Take it easy. We don’t know what we’re facing here yet.”

“I’m facing Trench and that dumb fucker’s gonna regret the day he back-doored me before I’m finished with him.”

Bane felt eager to change the subject. “You dig up anything on the pilot?”

“Yeah. Whole cockpit crew’s been reassigned to European routes. You can forget about talking to them for at least a month. Dug up something else interesting, though.”

“What?”

“One of the people on the passenger manifest is missing. Report was filed with the police three days ago.”

“Which one?”

“Kid by the name of David Phelps, goes by the name of Davey.”

Bane found his brief profile. David Phelps. Age 15. Address …

A numbness grabbed Bane’s spine and a dull throb found his temples. The senses lying on the very edge on his brain, senses that had kept him alive in a hundred steaming jungles and a hundred more impossible situations, snapped on, alerting him.

Alerting him to what?

“Missing persons report says the kid never made it home after the plane landed,” Harry was saying. “That stuck out. I figured you’d want to know.”

“Thanks,” Bane said distantly. “It’s as good a place to start my check as any.”

“I figured there might be a connection,” Harry said, studying Bane closely.

Connection … The word stuck in Bane’s head. Everything was connected here, tied up tighter than a drum. The Bat had given him a list of people on board a plane Jake Del Gennio claimed had disappeared. Then Jake had disappeared, and now the Bat had stolen a computer program locked away quite possibly by the people behind it all. Bane could smell danger here thick as barbecue smoke, and all at once he regretted dragging the Bat into the whole mess.

“Watch your back, Harry,” he offered lamely, rising with the computer print-outs tucked under his arm.

“Watch yours too, Winter Man,” the Bat told him.

Chapter Twelve

Colonel Chilgers left for Washington by private jet as soon as his meeting with Teke and Metzencroy was completed. He had an appointment to see the President and two of his advisers to discuss, unbeknownst to them, the final stage of Vortex. The discussion, Chilgers felt certain, was merely a formality. He knew the way they thought. They would accept his proposal, perhaps even embrace it.

Everything seemed to be falling into place. Trench would have Davey Phelps delivered by tomorrow, and he was bringing Scalia in to deal with Joshua Bane. Still, there was Metzencroy to worry about, but Chilgers felt confident he could handle the professor.

The limousine deposited him at a side entrance to the White House so he could avoid the press — Chilgers loathed publicity — and he was ushered immediately through the long, wide corridors into the reception area where he waited briefly while the President was informed of his arrival. When the President’s chief aide finally led him into the Oval Office, Chilgers noted the presence of the other two men he had been expecting: Secretary of Defense, George Brandenberg; and director of the Pentagon’s Department for Clandestine Operations (DCO), Arthur Jorgenson.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel,” the President said, rising behind his desk. Chilgers noticed a velvet chair had been placed between Brandenberg’s and Jorgenson’s. “I appreciate your promptness.”

Chilgers took the President’s outstretched hand. “A way of life for me, Mr. President.” And he sat down gracefully, eyes darting between Jorgenson and Brandenberg, sizing them up. Brandenberg was a military man all the way — no problem there. Jorgenson, though, was another matter. DCO was a nonpolitical branch, so its director could address the President any way he saw fit. In fact, Chilgers knew this was the reason the president often turned to Jorgenson. It would not be so easy to convince him of the necessity of the project he called Placebo.

“I’ve read your report,” the President began. “In fact, we all have.”

“Just a summary, Mr. President,” Chilgers offered, “of ongoing discussions that have been taking place for some time.”

“I must say the results are rather distressing.”

“Unfortunately.”

“That hardly speaks well of our multibillion dollar defense and retaliatory systems.”

“The systems are fine, sir. The problems, potentially, lie with the people manning them.”

“So I read,” the President said grimly.

Chilgers shrugged, burying a smile inside. Brandenberg and Jorgenson exchanged nods as they took the discussion in passively. They were here for later counsel, not direct participation, Chilgers realized, and thus would not stand as immediate obstacles in his path. He had only the President to convince. Still, Jorgenson worried him. The short, stout, silver-haired man ran DCO as neatly as Chilgers ran COBRA. Jorgenson was a detail man who explored all tangents before proceeding with anything. A committed skeptic, and worse, an incorruptible, nonpartisan one.

Chilgers met Jorgenson’s eyes. No reaction. The man was a pro.

“We can deal with the people,” Chilgers told the President, grabbing the offensive. “There are ways of exploring exactly how deep the problem extends.”

“I read that too,” the President commented. Then his features grew taut. “But I’m not convinced Project Placebo is the way to proceed. The measures are quite drastic.”

“So is the problem.”

“We’re all in agreement on that point, Colonel.”

“But at different levels, I’m afraid. I’m strictly a systems man, Mr. President. I know how to make weapons work and how to stop them.” Here, Chilgers almost turned his attention to Jorgenson and Brandenberg but there was no reason to drag them into the discussion or to antagonize them. “COBRA began developing the present Red Flag alert system a dozen years and three administrations ago. We have studied all potential problems relating to it and our fears have been made known to you.”

“Concerns, you mean,” from Brandenberg.

Chilgers held back another smile. “No, I mean fears and that’s what I meant by levels of agreement. We all agree on the problem. The issue is how far do we go to correct it.”

“And I say Project Placebo might be going too far,” insisted Jorgenson, taking the President’s side.

“Perhaps.” Chilgers shifted in his chair. Jorgenson was pressuring him. The colonel worked best under pressure. “But let us consider the fact that of all our land-based retaliatory and defense systems, only one percent have ever been proven effective in a real and clear sense of activation. That leaves ninety-nine as an uncertain commodity.”

“There are tests—”

Chilgers cut Brandenberg off. “Which prove nothing, nor do drills. Games, gentlemen,” he said, speaking to all three of them. “Nothing but games. The simple fact is that our procedures remain untested in a true high pressure situation. We have no way of knowing if our people will respond totally and unequivocally to orders, or if they’ll follow procedures precisely and surely.” Now, back to the President. “Project Placebo will give us our first accurate answers to these questions.”

The President nodded slowly, tracing the line of his jaw and chin with his fingers. “Colonel Chilgers, I want you to briefly sum up the essence of Project Placebo.”

Chilgers hesitated just for an instant. “Basically, that we ‘create’ the impression of all-out war for one of our missile installations and carefully chart their performance and reaction up to and including the point at which they are given the launch code. The human factor, Mr. President, is the one unknown present in an otherwise flawless system. And until we’ve tested it fully, under no circumstances can we maintain total confidence in our abilities.”

“It’s all computerized, though,” advanced the President.

“Only up to a point, sir. The buttons still have to be pressed, a whole series of them, and the slightest foul-up triggers the abort feature and we’ll have to start all over again. We’re talking about seconds here, but in the event of a Soviet strike, seconds might be all we have.”

“I still don’t see what you expect to gain from an exercise at just one of our silos.”

Chilgers leaned forward. “Each silo, especially each primary one, functions as a microcosm of the entire system. The stress factors and problems encountered within it are almost certain to provide more than adequate analysis of the concerns we’re talking about.”

“I assume you’ve worked out all the details of this Project Placebo of yours by now.”

Chilgers nodded. “The reports and procedures, down to the second, are in my briefcase. For security reasons the only copy is locked in my safe.”

“Well, we certainly wouldn’t want word leaking out if we do decide to go ahead with this.” The President rapped his knuckles on the desk surface. “I assume, Colonel, you’ve already got a test site chosen as well.”

“Bunker 17.”

The President turned to Secretary of Defense Brandenberg. “George?”

“A wise choice,” Brandenberg acknowledged. “Bunker 17 is one of our primary installations, constructed along with five sister stations as a kind of compromise for Dense-Pack. It has the capacity to fire thirty-six MX missiles, each loaded with ten high-yield hydrogen warheads, into Russia with a twenty-one-minute time lag.”

“Targets?”

“They’re changed at regular intervals for security reasons. A fair estimate would be the Soviets’ primary attack centers in addition to major areas of population and government.”

“I didn’t realize we put so many eggs in one basket,” the President said uneasily.

“There’s a reason for it, sir,” Brandenberg explained. “Our latest intelligence information indicates that the Russians are still in the dark about the existence of Bunker 17 and its five sister stations.” Here Brandenberg swung toward Chilgers. “As you know, Colonel, we spread the six units out over the most isolated parts of the West and Midwest: Wyoming, Montana, Utah, the Dakotas, Nevada. Mostly desert country. The installations are contained almost entirely underground with U.S. Agriculture cover buildings constructed over them. The firing silos themselves are spread out in a circle around the installations, under camouflage that makes them undetectable to even the latest Russian spy satellites.”

“The point,” Chilgers interjected, “is that Bunker 17 and her sister stations represent the strongest leg of the system rebuilt by your administration, Mr. President. Yet with all the hardware and computer simulations, we still don’t know if things will function as they must in a crisis. A million hours go into testing the machines. Project Placebo will test the people.”

“You’ve raised some interesting points,” the President said, “certainly worthy of serious consideration.”

“I’m afraid, sir, that the consideration must come rather fast. As my report indicates, three days from today would be the ideal time to activate Project Placebo.”

“Why?”

“Because in four days COBRA will be set to deliver to Bunker 17 thirty-six of the new MX Track One missiles with increased yield to their ten individual warheads.”

“I don’t follow your point.”

“Simply, sir, that the timing would allow us to substitute dummy warheads in the rebuilt Track Ones.”

“Which would be superfluous unless …” The President’s eyes sharpened. His cheeks puckered. “Good God, Colonel, you’re not suggesting we follow Project Placebo through to the point of actually firing the missiles?”

“Yes, I am,” Chilgers said without any hesitation whatsoever. “I left that factor out of my initial report purposely because I felt it was better expressed in person. For Placebo to have any tangible effect, it must be carried through to total completion — up to and including launch — to enable us to study the aftereffects of the stress involved. In a shooting war, Mr. President, we’ll hopefully get a chance to reload.”

“But we’d be taking an awful chance of alerting the Russians to the presence of Bunker 17.”

“Let’s not be naïve, sir. They already know about the existence of Bunker 17 and her sister stations, just as we know about all their secret installations. What we don’t know is how well our hundred billion dollar investment will function if actually called upon.” Chilgers paused briefly. “And the whole point of Project Placebo is to make a detailed study of the most important component of our entire defense system: the men who man it.”

“Then the missiles used for the project will be little more than drones,” the President concluded.

“Easily destructed once they pass into the atmosphere,” Chilgers added.

“So for part of this exercise Bunker 17 will be carrying blanks in all thirty-six cylinders.”

“My report outlines the exact scenario of Placebo,” Chilgers explained. “For optimum effect, the base should be at Yellow Flag status for a minimum of seventy-two hours before we trigger Red Flag. I’ve proposed we bring the bunker’s status up to that level in three days’ time, one day before the shipment of the new Track Ones is due. That way the dummy warheads will only have to be in the silos for forty-eight hours prior to final activation, so as not to weaken this crucial leg of our defense system for any prolonged period.”

“And leaving us hardly enough time for proper advance study.”

“There won’t be time for proper study if the Russians launch first either, sir.”

The President’s eyebrows flickered. “This office seldom affords me the luxury of making an immediate decision. Today is one of those times. Your proposal is tentatively accepted, Colonel, pending study of the detailed schema submitted today.”

This time Chilgers let his smile out.

The President held his gaze out the window after Chilgers had gone. “I’m not sure I like it, gentlemen, I’m not sure I like it at all.”

“On the surface,” said George Brandenberg, “the son of a bitch makes a hell of a lot of sense.”

“Except with Chilgers we never seem to know what’s going on beneath the surface.”

“But he gets results,” reminded Brandenberg. “He always has. Hell, COBRA has almost single-handedly kept us in step with the Russians militarily.”

“I suppose.”

“Then you’re serious about accepting Project Placebo,” from Arthur Jorgenson.

“George has been on my back to run a similar test for more than a year but the right circumstances never presented themselves. They have now.”

“Besides,” added Brandenberg. “How can we go wrong? Let’s take the situation to its worst possible extreme: that Chilgers intends to leave the warheads armed in hopes of starting up with the Russians so we’ll have to use all the marvelous equipment COBRA has developed in the last five years.”

“Then our fail-safe systems,” picked up the President, “would make it impossible for the missiles to ever leave our airspace. There are a dozen ways we could circumvent or abort the mission.”

Jorgenson scowled. “And what stops Chilgers from restructuring the missiles to override them? I mean, just about every piece of equipment at Bunker 17 probably contains component parts constructed by COBRA.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Brandenberg. “With that concern precisely in mind, all missiles go through a safety check on a regular daily basis, four times a day actually, to make sure all fail-safe systems are functioning. Even if half the systems somehow failed, that would still leave six operational.”

Jorgenson shook his head. “Once the missiles are actually launched, there are only four fail-safe systems available to us.”

“And even if all of them failed — a billion to one shot — we’d still be able to shoot them down with relative ease. Let’s say we give Chilgers’ dummy missiles a one-mile altitude before they self-destruct as laid out in Project Placebo. Even if they aren’t dummies and they don’t self-destruct, we use our own fail-safe destruct systems or just shoot the suckers down. There’s no way even COBRA can get around that.”

“Your point’s well taken,” Jorgenson conceded. “I don’t particularly like Chilgers. Maybe that’s the problem.”

The President nodded faintly in agreement. “None of us like him, Arthur. But he gets the job done extremely well with no leaks whatsoever. He’s survived five administrations before mine and has outlived them all. That’s a tenure unheard of in government circles. I’d wager that all my predecessors had their suspicions of him too. But if any of them were warranted he couldn’t possibly have lasted this long.”

“It never hurts to be careful,” Jorgenson advised.

“Strangely, Arthur,” the President said ironically, “that might be the strongest argument in favor of Project Placebo.”

Jorgenson’s eyebrows fluttered. “Then I just hope we’ve got a good man in command of Bunker 17.”

“In fact,” Brandenberg noted, “we do: Major Christian Teare.”

“Christian Teare? I hope he lives up to his name.”

“And then some, Arthur. Teare’s six-and-a-half feet tall and carries enough weight for us to have to make up his commander’s uniforms special. Also gives us a helluva time regularly for refusing to shave one of the scraggliest beards I’ve ever seen.”

“You’ve met Teare, then.”

“I recruited him and with good reason. He comes from redneck county, Georgia. But don’t let that fool you because before he joined up with us he once spent an evening saving fifteen blacks from a KKK raid. There were twenty klansmen and one of him. Teare won.” Brandenberg paused to let his point sink in. “He’s not a man you want as your enemy, but he’s a man who scored the highest leadership quotient in his class as well as exhibiting a constant. negative stress factor.”

“Tough combination to beat,” acknowledged Jorgenson.

“Which is precisely why I placed him in command of one of this country’s most sensitive installations.”

“Sounds like the right man to have between us and Project Placebo,” noted the President.

“Let me put it this way, sir. If you’re looking for a man to keep a rock from pinning you to a hard place, you need look no further.”

“I’ll sleep easier tonight,” said Jorgenson.

Chapter Thirteen

Bane went straight from I–Com-Tech to Brooklyn Heights and the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Martini, the foster parents of Davey Phelps. The fact that the boy had disappeared after Flight 22 had landed intrigued Bane. Had he, like Jake Del Gennio, seen or known something that had necessitated his removal? The way to finding out began with the Martinis and he’d already decided on his cover for them: he would pose as a field agent for Child-Find, the national center for locating missing children.

The Martinis lived on the western edge of Brooklyn Heights, in a neighborhood far enough from the East River to be spared the massive renovation and conversion efforts that had turned much of the Heights into a prime — and exclusively priced — area. Their home was the larger half of a two-family which reminded Bane somewhat of the Bronx house he’d grown up in. It was homey enough from the outside with soft, well-kept brick and a clean side-walk, the city sounds just far enough away to ignore.

Bane climbed a set of comfortably aged cement steps and gave the bell one long ring. Feet shuffled toward the door and he felt himself being scrutinized through the peephole. Locks jangled and the door opened just wide enough for a pair of eyes to poke out over a fastened chain.

“Mrs. Martini?”

“You must be Mr. Bane.” Bane nodded and she shut the door again in order to undo the chain. “Yours was the first hopeful call we’ve had in days,” she said, holding the door open for him. “It’s good to see you important types taking an interest in the problems of people like us. My husband’s at work. Always gets home by four so he can spend some time with the kids.”

Bane watched Clair Martini close the door behind him and ran her features through his mind. Her pale face was creased by lines and dominated by a pair of tired eyes. Her hair fell unevenly across her face and neck. Her dress clung to areas where she had started to bulge. She had the appearance of a woman who had given up trying to look young, but inside Bane felt warmth and honest caring.

She tried to smile and failed. “We can talk in the living room.”

They sat down next to each other on a simple cloth couch. The rest of the furniture was also plain: a stained throw rug, a pair of matching chairs, a television set missing a knob or two. The shades were half drawn, casting the room into dark and somber silence. Bane’s uneasiness increased.

“You know,” Mrs. Martini began, “we got four kids with us right now, including Davey, and we wouldn’t mind keeping them for good. Davey’s the oldest, one of the nicest kids we ever had stay with us. Been here for almost six months now.” Mrs. Martini sighed and pushed back tears. “I remember the first time the city brought him over. We got taken with him from the start. He had these real wide eyes and shaggy hair, see, that made him look so innocent and lonely you just wanted to cry.”

Bane’s flesh prickled. She might have been describing his late stepson. “Would you happen to have a picture of Davey around?” he asked, not fully knowing why, something tugging at his gut.

“What for?”

“To put on the national wire. If Davey’s a runaway, it’ll help turn him up.”

“He had a set taken in school. I’ll get you one.”

Mrs. Martini returned to the room holding a dogeared snapshot. “Best I can do,” she said, handing it to him.

Bane’s eyes found the face and froze. The snapshot quivered.

Davey Phelps was the boy from Rockefeller Center!

The snapshot wasn’t a great likeness, but it was close enough, especially the long, scraggly hair and deep-set, haunting eyes. There was no mistaking those. Incredible …

“When was the last time you saw him?” Bane asked Clair Martini.

“Before he went to the airport to visit his grandparents in San Diego. Ten days ago now. He should have been home before noon on Saturday. I guess I should have met him at the airport but I had the other three kids to watch, see. When he didn’t show up by two, I called his grandparents and they told me they had watched him get on the plane which means if something happened, it was after he got to New York.” Her stare became cold, sure. “He wouldn’t have run away, Mr. Bane. He wasn’t the type. I wish he was, then I wouldn’t be so God-awful worried. Something’s happened to him, I just know it has!” Mrs. Martini was on the verge of tears.

“And you haven’t heard from him at all these past five days? A phone call even?” Bane asked, his mind moving in another direction.

“Not a whisper, Mr. Bane. My husband Big Joe’s been spending a couple of hours at night on the streets asking around and checking with Davey’s friends. We’ve gotta do something or we’ll just go crazy. But something happened to Davey. It’s like I told that other man. But he didn’t listen like you are. He didn’t care.”

“What other man?”

“I don’t remember his name. Said he was from some kind of special bureau. Tall and well dressed, with real funny eyes.”

Bane felt something cold grip his insides. “What kind of eyes?”

“Light colored, kind of gray. I never seen anything like them.”

Bane’s heart skipped a beat. Mrs. Martini was describing Trench! Here, in New York! The whole thing was starting to come together but it made no sense.

“When was he here?”

“Yesterday afternoon. Late.”

“What did he want?”

“He asked to see Davey’s picture like you, but I didn’t want to let him keep it. Then he put it in his pocket and gave me a funny look, and I was afraid to ask him for it back. I didn’t like looking at his eyes. But he was polite and he had the right credentials. Asked the same questions as you. You know him, Mr. Bane?”

“I might.”

“Well, it’s good to have important people looking out for you.” Mrs. Martini hesitated and then took a deep breath. “You’ll find Davey for me, won’t you, Mr. Bane?”

Bane nodded slowly, and Mrs. Martini seemed to relax for the first time but only briefly.

“You know, Mr. Bane,” she said softly, “the city tells you to love them — but not too much. And to care for them — but not to get too close. Well, me and my husband Big Joe, can’t abide that, especially with a boy like Davey. He’s something special. His grandparents ought to have their heads examined for not taking him in permanent, if you know what I mean.”

“Can I keep this picture?” Bane asked her, still gazing at it.

“If it’ll help you bring him back.” Mrs. Martini’s lips quivered. Her eyes grew watery. “Bring him back to me, Mr. Bane, just bring him back to me,” she pleaded.

But Bane barely heard her because his mind was elsewhere working together all the variables. Davey Phelps, the boy from Rockefeller Center who reminded him so much of his stepson, had been a passenger on the disappearing 727 and now he was running from something. Why else wouldn’t he have come home? Trench was in New York, as an operative for some government group, looking for him. Of course, it would have taken a pro like Trench to dispose of Jake Del Gennio so cleanly. But why was he now searching for a fifteen-year-old boy? And who was he working for?

COBRA, Bane thought, it had to be. Everything came back to them. They had delayed Flight 22 in San Diego and certainly qualified as a government agency with enough clout to have Trench’s name removed from the active list if he was working for them. And if that were so, then COBRA was behind Jake’s death and now they were after Davey Phelps.

Bane figured Trench was still looking for the boy; otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered with a visit to the Martinis, a move hardly in keeping with his style. The problem was to get to Davey Phelps first and Bane thought he might have a lead. Davey hadn’t called home in five days. A fifteen-year-old boy, scared and alone, would sooner or later use a phone, which was exactly what Bane did in a booth just down the street from the Martinis’.

“Manhattan South,” a receptionist’s voice told him.

“Lieutenant Dirkin please.”

“One minute.”

“Dirkin,” a raspy voice announced twenty seconds later.

“Lou — Joshua Bane.”

“Hey Bane,” Dirkin shot out, “long time no hear. How goes the battle?”

“Surviving, I guess.”

“Well, that’s more than I can say for most. What can I do for you?”

“I need a favor. How soon can I see you?”

“An hour from now at the Bagel Nosh near the precinct. You’re buying.”

“Deal.”

Lou Dirkin was a barrel-chested man who stood barely five-and-a-half feet tall. He had done two tours in Nam and still limped a little on rainy days. Bane had worked with him once in the jungles and somehow had stayed in contact.

Dirkin was already seated at a center table when Bane arrived. A plate containing a bagel and cream cheese had just been placed in front of him.

“Love these things,” he said, rising to take Bane’s hand. “What can I do for you, Josh?” Dirkin sat back down. “Damnit, they put butter on this thing.” And he went to work with a napkin swabbing the bagel clean.

“I need a trace put on a line. Think you can handle it?”

Dirkin regarded him with interest. “Depends. Where’s the line?”

“Brooklyn Heights.”

“No problem. Should be able to ease it right through.”

“Time’s a factor.”

“That’s a problem. How soon?”

“Immediately.”

Dirkin frowned, started painting his bagel with cream cheese. “The impossible takes a little longer than that, buddy boy.”

“I’ve got faith in you, Lou.”

“I figure you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. You must be active again which means the streets are gonna be even less safe than usual. You working for Uncle Sam?”

“Right now I’m working for myself. Personal, not business.”

“Yeah, well this ain’t Nam, Josh. If you’re gonna litter the streets with bodies, do it in somebody else’s precinct.” Dirkin paused. “So what’s the machine?”

“I need a trace on all incomings and lots of updates.”

“You’re asking a lot of the old computer, Josh.”

“Think you can swing it?”

Dirkin took a bite of his bagel. “Hell, with the new equipment we’ve got, we can have a line traced in five seconds. I’ll just have to keep it secret from the captain or he’ll have my ass.”

“Not if you’re still running the precinct, he won’t.”

Dirkin winked, started another mouthful. “What he don’t know, won’t hurt him. What number you want watched, Josh?”

Bane gave it to him.

Chilgers made the phone call from his private jet en route back to San Diego.

“I’ll be arriving in New York tomorrow evening,” Scalia told him.

“Your work will begin immediately. There’s some cleaning up to do.”

“How many targets?”

“One primarily.”

“My price is a half million. Usual procedures. Who is the primary target?”

“Joshua Bane.”

Scalia paused. “The price for that will be a million and a half.”

Chilgers knew there was no sense in arguing. “Very well,” he said. “Other services may be required.”

“We’ll negotiate when the time comes. You know where to reach me.”

“Things might get messy.”

“You’ve come to the right place.”

Harry Bannister lived in a nice enough building on East Sixty-ninth Street refurbished by a compassionate architect with the handicapped in mind. The halls were wide and the elevators deep. And the main front entrance wasn’t through a revolving door.

“Welcome to my humble abode, Winter Man,” Harry greeted and wheeled himself forward.

Josh closed the door behind him. Everything in the apartment seemed to be made of wood. Harry prided himself on traditional furniture, loathing modern plastics, metals, and glass that laid to waste aesthetic design.

“Pour yourself a drink, Josh. This is a day for celebration. I’ve finally got the bastard. After all these years, I’ve finally got him.”

Bane stopped halfway to the wood-finished wet bar. “You found out who Trench was working for?”

“It took some arm twisting.”

“Mind if I venture a guess?”

“Be my guest.”

“COBRA.”

The Bat’s features sank a bit. “Shit, Josh, you really know how to spoil a poor cripple’s surprise. How’d you figure it out?”

“You go first.”

“Lots of people owe me favors, Josh, but not nearly as many anymore. They didn’t want to talk, but living in this chair does have its advantages. People don’t refuse you much if you know how to ask for what you want.”

“You could have asked before. Anytime.”

“Except I never had the specifics before. You gave them to me this morning. Besides, running into you in the park the other day made me realize maybe I haven’t changed so much after all.”

“Neither has Trench.”

“Your turn,” Harry said simply.

Bane told him how COBRA seemed to fit into everything that was going on, and had been, since Flight 22 had been delayed out of San Diego.

“So you figure COBRA sent the tall bastard out here to ice Jake,” the Bat said bitterly.

Bane nodded. “And now he’s after a fifteen-year-old kid.”

“Seems a bit low for him.”

“The kid was on the plane.”

“So were sixty-six other people.”

“The boy must be different,” Bane said. “COBRA seems to want him awfully bad.”

“Sounds to me like you do too.”

“Once we’ve got him, the rest will fall into place. I’ve got this feeling he’s the key to the whole thing.”

The Bat regarded him with a knowing grin. “There’s more, Josh, I know there is. What is it with this kid and you?” When Bane stayed silent, Harry continued. “Got a plan to find him?”

Bane told him about the phone tap he had arranged through Lou Dirkin.

“Sounds promising, Josh. Except if you figured it out, it’s a cinch Trench did too.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

The Bat started to wheel himself past Bane, to the wall bar dominated by mirror-backed shelves. “Sounds like you’re goin’ hunting tonight, Josh, so I figure you could use some artillery. Hands are fine but not against Trench and his army.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Let’s see …” Harry hit a switch concealed under the counter. The mirror backing rotated, the shelves disappeared, and Bane found himself looking at a wide assortment of every handgun imaginable. “I keep the rifles in my bedroom closet. You can’t be too careful these days.”

“So I see.”

Harry was fingering a sleek automatic resting on the first row. “How about a Walther PPK? You’ve already got James Bond’s initials. You might as well take his gun.”

“I’d prefer something with more stopping power.”

The Bat winked at him. “Got just what ya need.” He pulled a somewhat larger, but just as sleek, pistol from the row above the Walther, stretching his fingers to reach it. “The latest from Browning. An FN highpower, self-loading, semiautomatic with a thirteen shot clip. And, as a special added extra, a couple clips packed with silver bullets, just like the Lone Ranger used to use. Bet you never heard Tonto say that getting shot with one of these bastards is like swallowing a grenade. Tear your head off at sixty yards.”

“Hollow points?”

“Standard equipment.”

Bane reached out and Harry handed the Browning over. “I’ll take it on approval.”

“Happy hunting, kemosabe.”

Chapter Fourteen

Davey Phelps huddled in a corner of the couch, arms wrapped around his knees. He didn’t know what time it was, though he guessed ten o’clock had already come and gone. He hadn’t turned the lights on because he knew the Men were close and might discount a dark apartment.

He had almost gone home; in fact, he was on his way there when The Vibes warned him not to. Maybe the Men were watching his house. Maybe going home would mean danger for his foster family. In any case, he ended up in Queens halfway between the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the East River, just off Nassau Avenue and near a renovated apartment building named the Ferdinand. He pushed hard for The Chill with the doorman and ended up in a seventh floor apartment vacated by a tenant on a month-long vacation.

Davey’s head pounded the whole time the doorman led him up to the seventh floor and opened the apartment for him. He felt The Chill slip a few times and had to fight to get it back. It didn’t seem to be working right anymore. Since that morning, when he’d escaped from the hotel, his head had been filled with an awful thumping that threatened to split it apart. Once inside the apartment, he had pressed both temples hard for twenty minutes to block the pain but it came back every time he pulled his fingers away.

He was lonely and scared. He couldn’t go home but at least he could call, talk for a while, tell his foster parents he was okay — even though he wasn’t he owed them that much.

An hour before he had dialed the number.

“Hello,” said his foster mother on the other end. “Hello?”

Davey couldn’t speak. What could he tell her? Talking would only make things worse. He hung up, only to call twice more in the next twenty minutes, always with the same results.

His head hurt worse than ever.

His nose suddenly felt stuffy and he realized he was sobbing. He swiped at the tears with a sleeve of his jacket.

The Men were coming for him; he knew that now. Somehow they had found out where he was and they were coming. He couldn’t run anymore. His head hurt too much and he didn’t have the strength.

He relaxed a bit, almost fell asleep, until a succession of car doors slamming on the street below told him it was over.

“Hey, Josh,” said Lou Dirkin, “glad you called.”

“Got anything for me?”

“Yeah, the bag of shit the captain gave me for running an unauthorized tap. He made me pull it.”

“Shit…”

“Don’t fret, buddy boy, that bagel you bought me was still a good investment. I ran down all the calls that came in since this afternoon. One series stands out: three calls in maybe a twenty-minute period ending fifteen minutes ago, all from the same location, all thirty seconds in duration with, get this, no dialogue exchanged. Weird, huh? Think that’s what you’re looking for?”

“Give me the address,” Bane told him.

Trench addressed himself to the five COBRA operations men in charge, respectively, of seven men each. “I want this building surrounded. Front and back. Three men minimum on each exit. No slip-ups this time.” He felt the sweat forming inside his gloves in spite of the cold. The temperature had dipped below the freezing mark, and his breath made clouds of mist in the air. “My men and I will bring the subject out personally. None of you makes a move unless I authorize it. Understood?”

The five men nodded and moved away to relay the instructions to their specific groups. Trench started back toward the Twin Bears. Chilgers had tapped directly into the local telephone system to get a fix on all calls terminating at the Martinis’ residence. Trench cared only about those originating within a twenty-mile radius. The boy was still close; he knew it. It was just a question of getting a break, and that came with those three strange phone calls which had come less than an hour before, all originating from a seventh-floor apartment in the Ferdinand.

Davey Phelps undoubtedly.

There would be no escape for the boy this time. Trench had thought everything out, up to having one of his men atop a nearby utility pole cut off all juice to the street in the event the boy tried a repeat of that morning’s performance. It would end for him here and now.

His confidence in the red-headed Twin Bears, Pugh and Soam, was total. He would leave one on the first floor as insurance against one of COBRA’s soldiers interfering or the boy escaping him on the floors above. Trench would go upstairs with the second Twin Bear and would enter the boy’s apartment after Soam, only when he was sure it was safe. That way, if the boy turned his unusual powers on the giant, Trench would be free to burst in and empty an entire clip into him, though he fully expected the giant to take the boy without a struggle, after which Trench would follow them to the cellar, execute Davey Phelps, and report that he had escaped once again.

Trench nodded at the Twin Bears and the three of them started across the street toward the building.

Bane was approaching the apartment building by car when he saw the tall man in the beige overcoat. The man turned enough for him to realize it was Trench flanked by two of the biggest brutes he had ever seen. The killer seemed to be speaking to them, issuing instructions. That was all Bane could pick up before his car passed out of range; enough, though, for him to realize there was no way he could gain access to the building from the outside — Trench would have all entrances covered. That the killer was here surprised Bane not at all. The important thing was that it appeared Trench was about to enter the building for the first time, which meant there was still a chance to save the boy. But how to get inside?

There had to be a way. He could rush one door perhaps and hope for the best, a small number of men to encounter and defeat. No, that was too chancy, long odds surely with a virtual army to defeat before he was finished. Then he remembered something. These buildings had all been constructed long ago between the two world wars. For safety and security reasons, they shared a common cellar. That was the answer!

Entry into a neighboring building would assure him of passage into the one he sought. Bane left his car around the corner in a towaway zone and headed back to Davey Phelps.

Trench entered the lobby of the building with a Twin Bear on either side of him, confident that COBRA’s men had the outside sufficiently surrounded. Those residents returning or leaving, if they asked, were informed that a joint police-federal operation was in progress and were told not so politely to stay out of the way.

Trench nodded to the blue-eyed Bear, Pugh, signaling him to remain in the lobby while his brother led the way upstairs. Pugh crossed his arms and stood directly between the door and the stairs. No one would be getting by him. His brown-eyed brother, Soam, started up the steps with Trench close behind. The killer didn’t trust the elevator, not with a boy who could turn fire alarms crazy seven floors above.

By the fifth floor, the two men had slowed their pace to a crawl, gliding across the steps with no hint of any noise that might forfeit their presence. Halfway up the sixth, Soam withdrew a thick, razor-sharp hunting knife from a sheath on his belt. Trench worked his gun free of its holster.

They crept to the designated room on the seventh floor, Trench making sure it was the correct one, and stood on opposite sides of the door.

Inside, The Vibes told Davey Phelps they were there and he lurched to his feet, pressing himself into the room’s far corner. If only The Chill could make him invisible, part of the wall. But his head was still splitting and The Chill continued to elude him. So he would give himself up, hold his hands up in the air just like criminals did when cornered in the movies.

Then The Vibes screeched through Davey’s head and he knew at once these men had come to kill him, not take him. He had started to push himself away from the wall when the door exploded off its hinges revealing a man as wide and tall as the frame.

Soam showed his knife.

The dark cellar stairs came to an end in the Ferdinand’s lobby. Bane opened the door just a crack, enough to catch sight of the giant hovering in the hallway. His back was to Bane, an easy enough shot for the Browning and Bane cursed himself for not bringing a silencer. He’d have to take the giant with his bare hands which promised to be no simple task, at the very least time consuming. He had surprise on his side, though, and could be across the floor before the monster knew what hit him.

He was almost right.

Pugh turned at the last instant before Bane’s arm closed around his throat. The Bear lashed out with a forearm that landed with the impact of an oak tree, cheating Bane of his balance. The giant followed the blow up immediately, but Bane was in motion again, ducking under the giant’s outstretched arms and ramming his kidney hard with an elbow. Pugh felt the blow, wincing, and staggered to turn. Bane closed again but the Bear caught him with a glancing blow to the head. He lurched back, stunned, his senses clearing in time to realize the giant was stalking him, closing for the kill, a huge knife glinting in his hand.

Bane backpedaled, holding his distance. The giant shifted the knife agilely from his right hand to his left, smiling, red hair flaming in the light. A sudden shift and he was closing Bane into a corner, sensing the end.

Bane felt his shoulders graze wood.

The Bear took the bait.

The knife came forward at the same instant Bane did, but the giant was totally unprepared for a frontal assault. Bane deflected the knife hand easily, simultaneously jabbing a set of strong, rigid fingers up toward the eyes. They mashed home, the giant howling in pain and raising his hands to comfort his torn sockets.

The knife slipped to the floor.

The Bear staggered backward, fighting to see Bane who was on him before he could blink. First to the groin and then the throat. He smashed the giant’s windpipe with tight, gnarled fingers till he felt cartilage crack and withdraw. The Bear toppled over like a felled tree, clawing the floor madly as the last of life bottlenecked in his crushed throat.

Bane bolted for the steps.

The red-haired monster hesitated before entering Davey’s apartment, as though unsure, expecting something to happen. When it didn’t, he crossed into the darkness, slicing the air with the shining blade that marked his path.

The giant moved toward him like a cat and Davey wanted to say, “It’s okay. I give up.” But no words came because he knew they wouldn’t matter. Davey could read the giant’s eyes too well, his intentions as plain as his pupils. A shadow flickered in the hallway, so there must be another of them waiting beyond the door, and Davey knew suddenly it was the tall man he had seen that morning on the sidewalk, the real cold one whose thoughts were buried deeper than the others’.

The giant was drawing closer, almost upon him, the knife just out of range. Davey watched his eyes shimmer eagerly and then saw the knife plunging toward his stomach, felt the horrible moment of pain and the sick feeling of warm blood pulsing out. He felt himself sliding down the wall, already dead, but his eyes, strangely, still seeing until the giant stuck the knife in deeper and yanked up, splitting his whole abdomen in two and spilling its contents all over the floor.

Davey’s hands went to his stomach and found it whole. He looked up to see the giant still approaching, a final lunge away. It had been The Vibes, Davey realized. The Vibes had shown him what was about to happen and the reality of his own death sent a quiver up his spine and Davey knew he had The Chill again.

The red-haired monster drew his knife back.

Davey pushed for The Chill, ignoring the blasting in his head, pushed for The Chill with everything he had.

The red-haired monster stopped in his tracks, as though an invisible door were suddenly before him. His face grew puzzled, uncertain. Then Soam’s eyes bulged in agonizing fear as he realized his knife hand was headed for his own midsection. He couldn’t control it. Desperately, he latched his other massive hand onto the trembling wrist, slowing the blade’s progress but not halting it.

Davey made The Chill stronger.

Soam’s knife hand was trembling horribly now but still the blade snailed on. He tightened his grip with his other fingers, trying to shut off the blood flow. The razor-sharp edge neared his stomach.

It was taking too long, Trench realized, and decided to check the room. His eyes first caught the frozen Twin Bear and the knife ready to pass into his midsection by his own hand. The boy’s attention was riveted upon him. Trench couldn’t believe his eyes. He was aware only partially that his strategy had paid off. He withdrew his gun slowly, careful not to draw the boy’s eye, and leveled it for a head shot. A simple squeeze of the trigger and the boy’s brains would be coating the wallpaper and with them, his power.

Soam felt the tip of the blade pierce his flesh, then sink steadily deeper.

Trench took final aim.

Soam retched as the blade plunged in to the hilt and started its move upward.

Trench was curling the trigger now.

Bane crashed into him from behind, forcing the killer off balance and his shot into the wall. Trench tried to turn the gun on him, but Bane drove the killer’s arm against the wall and the pistol went flying into the darkness.

Davey saw all this transpire deep in his consciousness as he pushed The Chill one last time. Soam gurgled blood as the blade split the bone and gristle of his thorax and his hot insides poured out in a flood.

Trench came up with a knee, Bane deflected it easily. The killer was breathing hard — too old for hand-to-hand — and Bane had only to hold out to assure himself of victory. That underestimation almost cost him his life, because suddenly there was a knife in Trench’s left hand, literally pulled from his sleeve. The blade was moving toward Bane’s throat too fast to duck so he brought his right arm up to ward off the blow and the blade cut through fabric and found flesh.

Bane screamed in agony and jammed Trench’s body hard against the plaster, pummeling him once, twice, three times with the knife pinned against the wall. The killer went limp. Bane released him and let his unconscious frame slip down the wall leaving a thin trail of blood behind his head. Trench flopped to the floor weightlessly, a scarecrow without ties.

Bane started to go for his gun, intent on finishing Trench, but stopped. Something held him back. It might have been the fact that he had never fancied the idea of killing someone in an utterly helpless state. Or it might have been that he was standing over a man who was one of the few who had survived the Game long enough to be considered a legend. You didn’t kill a legend while he lay slumped against a wall. Bane turned toward the boy.

Davey released Soam from The Chill and the Twin Bear keeled over into his own blood and innards.

Bane saw the body fall. Then his eyes met Davey’s. He had started forward when a blast of scorching wind met him head-on, jabbing his flesh with hot needles. He almost felt he was melting and was powerless to do anything about it when Davey slid slowly down the far wall and curled his arms about his knees, his whole body trembling awfully.

Released from whatever had held him, Bane moved tentatively forward, aware that he had little time but not wanting to frighten the boy further. He shoved what he had just seen and felt aside for the time being and knelt by the boy.

“Davey …”

Nothing.

“Davey?”

Still nothing. The boy looked blankly ahead past Bane, past everything, teeth chattering and hair curled at the tips by sweat.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Bane told him. He helped the boy to his feet and steadied him, supporting his frame with an arm around his shoulders. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he repeated. “I’ll help you but you’ve got to walk. Try now, come on.”

Bane was still holding onto the boy when they moved into the corridor, palming the gun in his free hand. The forces outside might have heard Trench’s shot, and even if they hadn’t there was certainly a time factor here that might well have been exceeded. The rest of Trench’s men, or some of them, would be following him in.

Bane chose the elevator this time and hit the lobby button. He eased Davey gently away from him to check the Browning. The boy’s eyes seemed to be coming back to life. They looked up into Bane’s full and trusting.

The elevator ground to a halt. Bane pushed the boy behind him.

The doors opened across the lobby in full view of the front door. Three figures were entering hesitantly, perhaps even fearfully, seeing Bane too late to respond. Their hands never touched their guns or their walkie-talkies before he took them out with one bullet each. The spent shells danced hot in the air as the chamber continued to clear itself, barrel spitting smoke.

“Come on!” he shouted at Davey, pulling him by the arm toward the door leading into the cellar. The shots would bring reinforcements and lots of them. There was no more time to waste. Bane took the cellar stairs quickly, never losing his grip on Davey who dragged behind him like a dead weight.

Then footsteps pounded the floor above them, unsure and without direction until they realized the only possible route of escape. Davey must have heard them too, because suddenly he sprang to life and began moving on his own in Bane’s shadow just as both of them heard the cellar door shatter open and the sounds of men clearing the steps.

The cellar was dank and dimly lit, cluttered with storage and old plumbing, which didn’t stop Bane from rushing through it on a sure path Davey followed. The men were closing on them, though now the clutter was working in Bane’s favor by effectively screening him and the boy from sight and, thus, bullets.

Their pursuers had come dangerously near when Bane spotted the staircase that had been his passage in and bolted toward it, pulling Davey along so hard that he was nearly carrying him. The boy struggled to keep up and not lose his footing.

They took the stairs quickly and emerged in the lobby of the second building from the Ferdinand. Screening the boy’s body with his, Bane slithered down a hallway and crashed through a side exit just as a horde of men rushed the front door and blanketed that half of the building.

They had escaped the dragnet by seconds but steps still pounded the sidewalk not far behind. Bane didn’t even think of using his gun; even silver bullets were good only one to a customer. He just kept pulling a winded Davey along toward his parked car and God help them if Trench’s people had found it.

The car seemed clear up ahead, a narrowing distance away. They reached it and Bane pushed Davey into the front seat. He jammed the key home before he’d even got the door closed.

The car roared to life. Bane gunned the engine, spun the wheel, floored the gas pedal. The car rushed away, tires screeching.

Bane stole a glance at the quivering boy beside him and headed the car toward traffic.

Chapter Fifteen

Bane carried Davey up to Janie’s apartment.

“My God!” she managed after opening the door. “What happened? Who is he?”

“Long story,” Bane said, kicking the door shut. “I think he might be going into shock. I’ll put him on the couch. Grab a blanket.”

Janie returned with it just as Bane was lifting Davey’s legs onto the fabric. “Who is he?” she repeated.

Wordlessly, Bane covered him up to the neck and smoothed his hair. The boy’s eyelids fluttered.

“He’s the boy you chased at Rockefeller Center, isn’t he?” Janie demanded.

“He’s a hell of a lot more than that.”

She hesitated. “Why’d you bring him here?”

“Because they’ll already be watching my place. We won’t be able to keep him here long. They’ll make the connection soon enough.”

“Who?” Janie grabbed him by the shoulders. Bane winced and she saw the blood seeping down his right arm. “Josh, you’re hurt!”

“Just a scratch.”

She regarded him fearfully. “What’s going on?”

“It’s like I feared, only worse. COBRA’s behind all of it and they’ve got Trench in their corner. I slowed them up tonight but it’ll only be temporary.”

“Then it was Trench who killed your friend Jake.”

“And he was about to kill the boy.”

“When you arrived to save the day? …”

“Not exactly. I only handled Trench. The boy did a pretty good job on one of Trench’s giant henchmen.”

“But that’s not possible.”

“It happened. I saw it. I don’t know how, but it looked like the boy made the giant split his own stomach open.”

Janie pulled back, her face wrinkling in disgust. “But you’re not sure. You’re not sure what you saw.”

Bane pulled her back around to face him. “But I’m sure of what I felt,” he said, remembering the numbing heat that had surged into him in the death-filled apartment. “This boy’s got some crazy power. Maybe COBRA gave it to him and wants it back, I just don’t know.” But suddenly he did. “Or maybe it all has something to do with the disappearing plane that cost Jake Del Gennio his life. Maybe that’s—”

“You’re not making sense,” Janie broke in anxiously.

“That’s the point. None of this makes sense. Forty men in New York looking for one boy. A contract assassin hired to bring him in. No, none of it makes sense, and it all started when Davey Phelps didn’t come home after getting off Flight 22.”

“Didn’t come home? What are you talking about?”

Bane explained that part of it to her.

“So is that where you’ll take him from here?” Janie wondered. “Back to the Martinis?”

“It won’t be safe for him there either. COBRA won’t be giving up the chase so fast.”

“Then what do we do?”

“First, we get you out of here.”

Janie shook her head, slow but sure. “Uh-uh. There won’t be any running for me. This is my home and that’s the way it’s gonna stay.”

“That’s probably the same way Jake Del Gennio felt. If they made him disappear, they can do the same for you.” Bane sighed. “At least let me call Harry and have him come over and watch the place while I take the kid to a safer lodging.”

“Wouldn’t make a difference if I said no, would it?” she asked.

“You need protection.”

Janie moved away from him, eyes cold. “And you need a bandage on that shoulder. Let me see what I can dig out of the medicine cabinet.”

Bane pulled a Coke from the fridge before waking Davey up at three A.M. Janie had fallen asleep in front of the television in her bedroom, leaving them alone in the den.

On the first touch to his shoulder, Davey sprang to a sitting position, eyes flashing madly, trying to accustom himself to his new surroundings.

“Wh-wh-where am I?” he stammered. “Who are you?”

Bane handed him the can. “Drink this and relax. You’ve been through an awful lot tonight. Let it come back slowly.”

Davey took the Coke hesitantly and gulped a third of it down. The blanket had slipped down beneath his waist; his shivering was apparently over. Then Bane saw him shudder beneath his leather jacket.

“The apartment! It all happened at the apartment!” Davey’s deep-set eyes sought out Bane’s. “You were there. I remember now. Those men wanted to kill me and you stopped one. Hey, your shirt’s got blood on it.”

“I got a little careless.” Bane sat down next to him on the couch. “Well, Davey, we better figure out what to do with you.”

“How did you know my name? I never told you my name,” the boy snapped defensively, shrinking away.

“My name’s Josh. I’m sorry we haven’t been formally introduced. I got your name from the Martinis.”

“You knew where to look for me?”

“So did the men who found you at the apartment.”

Davey shrugged and curled his lips. “They’ve been after me since it all started.” He looked at Bane suddenly and recognition flashed in his eyes. “Say, wait a minute, I do know you. You were the man I saw at Rockefeller Center yesterday. You chased me a couple blocks. Why’d you do that?”

“You looked like someone I used to know,” Bane said distantly.

“I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“Hurt me?”

“The fall. It looked like you might’ve broken something.”

“Because of some cripple on a skate-wheel platform, not you.”

“I made him do it,” Davey said simply. “I put the thought in his head.”

Bane was speechless. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall together.

“I tried to make The Chill work on you first,” the boy went on, “but I couldn’t. Something blocked it.”

“The … Chill?” Bane asked, recalling the feeling of having something push back against him suddenly as he had run.

Davey nodded. “That’s what I call it ’cause that’s what it feels like when I make it. ’Cept it didn’t work for a while tonight and it really hurts my head now.”

“That’s how you killed the giant in the apartment….”

“But he was going to kill me! I know it! I saw it!” Davey roared. “I only did exactly to him what he was planning to do to me. Sort of like a mirror. I gave the reflection back to him. The Vibes showed it to me. They’ve showed me lots of things the last couple days.”

“The Vibes?”

“That’s what I call them anyway. They’re what told me you were looking at me by the fountain and most of the time they warned me when the Men were close. Other times, they showed me things I didn’t want to see but it doesn’t help to close my eyes ’cause I guess The Vibes come from the inside, kinda like a movie projector in my head.”

“And you can use The Chill as much as you want?”

Davey looked down. “For a while I could. Then it started to hurt my head, so the last couple times I’ve only been able to make it work when I really needed it. Like tonight.”

“You disappeared from the airport after your flight came in.”

“’Cause they were watching me.”

“But you never went home.”

“’Cause I knew they were watching it too.”

“But you called tonight.”

“I got … lonely.” Davey eyed Bane curiously. “You said I reminded you of somebody. Who?”

“A boy who would’ve been about your age. He was killed in a car accident five years ago. He was my stepson.”

Davey looked away. “My parents are both dead too.”

Bane squeezed his shoulder tenderly. “I know.”

“How come you know so much about me?”

Bane pulled his hand back. “Something happened on the flight you took back to New York. You remember anything about it?”

“Nah. I slept most of the way. Had this funny nightmare where I thought I woke up, only everything was funny colored. The light was gone, but it wasn’t dark either. And where all the other people had been sitting, all I could see were traces of them like they weren’t really there anymore. I could see right through them.”

“That’s all you remember about the nightmare?”

“The weird thing is I don’t remember waking up, or the plane landing, or getting off it. Next thing I knew I was standing in the terminal. I must’ve been in a trance or something.” Davey regarded Bane hopefully. “Are you gonna take me home now?”

Bane shook his head slowly. “It’s not safe yet.”

“Shit,” Davey muttered; then quickly he raised his hand to his mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”

Bane smiled. “That’s okay. You deserve it.”

Davey smiled back and the bond between them tightened. Then Davey’s smile disappeared. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t exactly know how to say it. It’s … The Vibes. A couple times I’ve felt them real strong, different from the other times, stronger but farther off.”

“Like what you’re seeing might be coming more in the future?”

“I guess…. But these Vibes have been the worst of all. I don’t see anything specific, just lots of things melting, breaking apart, and people—” He looked suddenly at Bane. “Something awful’s gonna happen. Lots of people are gonna die.”

“For now I’m just worried about you.”

Davey toyed with the seams of his jeans. “I’m scared, Josh, real scared. I don’t know what I did, I don’t know why these guys are after me. Why do they want to kill me? What did I do?” He paused, swiped at his watery eyes. “Can I … go home now?”

Bane’s hand found Davey’s shoulder again, stayed there. “They’ll still be watching your house. It’s not safe,” he repeated.

“When will it be safe?”

Before Bane could manage an answer, the doorbell rang. He had the Browning out before he was halfway over.

“Who’s there?” he asked, back pressed against the adjacent wall, out of range of a shotgun blast from the outside.

“Santa Claus,” snapped the voice of Harry the Bat, “but I couldn’t wheel this goddamn thing down the chimney.”

Bane unchained the door and swung it open. The Bat wheeled himself in.

“Don’t bother to thank me for coming over here at three in the morning. After all, what are friends for?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.”

“I won’t ask you if it’s important because it better be.”

“And then some.”

“Lord fuck a duck, Winter Man, I never realized how much I missed your company,” Harry said, voice laced with sarcasm. There was a shuffling noise from the den of the apartment and he swung toward it. “Well Lord fuck a — er — sorry …”

“Davey,” Bane announced, “I want you to meet Harry Bannister, the Bat to his friends.”

“And some of my enemies. Nice to meet ya, kid. Excuse the language.” Then, to Bane, “Is that the kid you—”

“That’s the kid and I don’t think you have to worry much about your language around him after what he’s been through.”

“Lord fu — er — frig a duck, Josh, he does look a bit like Peter. I see sure in hell what you meant. Well, him being here means you must’ve had a successful hunt tonight.”

“I’ll fill you in on everything later. Right now I’ve gotta get the kid stashed somewhere safe.”

“The King’s?”

“The King’s.” Bane’s eyes shifted toward the bedroom where the television was still whispering. “Janie’s not going to be too pleased when she wakes up and finds you here….”

“Terrific …”

“So go easy, Harry. Just be your regular charming self.”

“I left him back in bed at my place, Josh.”

Bane smiled, though he didn’t feel much like it. “You’re carrying I assume.”

“A fuckin’ …” Then, with an eye on Davey, “… I mean a friggin’ arsenal. I figured the elevator might not make it up ’cause I’m packed so tight.”

“Watch the door, Harry,” Bane said, motioning Davey toward him.

“Anything that comes through there, Winter Man, better be ready to spend the rest of its life in a thousand pieces.”

“This your car?” Davey asked when they were inside a Cutlass parked in the garage beneath the building.

“No, it’s Janie’s. They’ll be watching for mine.”

Davey looked down, a habit apparently. “Oh.” His eyes came back up again. “She your girl?”

“She used to be. Right now, I’m not quite sure.”

“Is that ’cause you brought me to her place?”

“It’s because of a lot of things.”

Bane pulled the Cutlass onto the street, careful to watch for sudden movement in the area.

“So where we going?” Davey asked.

“To get you a baby-sitter.”

“What?”

Bane’s eyes rotated between the road and the rear-view mirror. “Not some old lady who passes the time away with knitting needles,” he assured jokingly. “This guy happens to stand about seven feet tall and bends steel bars for fun.”

“Who is he?”

“His name’s King Cong.”

“Come on.”

“You’ll see.”

“Hey, we’re in Harlem,” Davey realized as they drew near the gym.

“The King’s home turf,” Bane explained. “He doesn’t leave it much and most people with brains stay clear.”

“I thought you had brains, Josh.”

“I’m different.” Bane’s eyes checked the rearview mirror yet again. “How many of the men after you were black?”

“None that I saw.”

“That’s the point. The King doesn’t take a fancy to most white folks and around these parts they’ll stick out long before they get a chance to use their guns.”

“Right on, brother,” Davey quipped, flashing his smile.

The King was waiting for them at the door to his gym.

“You keep funny hours, Josh boy,” he greeted, locking it behind them. He looked bigger and more menacing than ever. Bane noticed a pistol the size of a cannon tucked into his belt.

“Sorry if I woke you up, King.”

“No sweat, Josh boy, the King don’t ever sleep at night. Too many better things to do.” The King paused and checked Bane over, stopping at the eyes and holding onto them, nodding with apparent satisfaction at what he saw. “You’s a different man, Josh boy, than you was the last time I saw ya.”

“Two days can make a big difference, King, a world of difference.”

“Yeah.” Conglon grinned. “Winter’s stayin’ late this year.” His huge eyes focused on Davey who felt his knees buckle from the stare. “Don’t pay me no fear, boy. I’m a lot meaner than I seem.”

Davey just looked at him.

“He’s all yours, King,” Bane said.

“I ain’t never been much at baby-sittin’.”

“Keeping him safe and sound will more than suffice.”

King Cong took a menacing step forward. “Treat me nice for the next decade or so, Josh boy, and I just might forget you said that. When the King says he’ll do ya a favor, you can bet your white prick it’ll get done right. I got ten guys on call already. Your boy here won’t take a step without one of ’em on either side every fuckin’ minute.”

“You trust them?”

“I trained ’em, you mother.”

“That’s all I wanted to know.”

Bane started back for the door, turned, and held Davey’s shoulder briefly. “I’ll be back for you when it’s safe.” Then, with his eyes on the King, “You’re in good hands, the best.” He squeezed Davey’s shoulder one last time and moved for the door again.

King Cong sensed the boy’s fear and uneasiness, so he thought fast and yanked the pistol cannon from his belt.

“Ever shoot a gun, boy?”

Davey looked at him with awe. “No. I mean, not really.”

“Well, next couple days should be as good a time as any to learn. Here, heft this.” The King handed his magnum over and its weight sunk Davey’s hands past his belt. The boy looked at it mesmerized. “Might even get in a little boxin’, and I’ll teach ya a thing or two ’bout weights,” the King continued but Davey’s attention stayed locked on the gun.

“Thanks, King,” Bane said gratefully from the door.

“A pleasure, Josh boy. I ain’t even come close to evenin’ up our debt chart.”

“This makes it paid in full.”

Bane was halfway out when the King’s voice made him turn.

“Know somethin’, Josh boy? I got me a funny feelin’ that if I had tried to play the Game on ya in the street tonight, you just mighta won.”