The Death Strain Read online

  I estimated the distance to the house. One step into the clearing and I was a perfect target. But the distance wasn't that great to the rear windows. Forty-five seconds might do it, running at top speed. It was time to call on Special Effects and I reached a hand into my jacket pocket.

  I always made it a practice to have something of Stewart's on me. One never knew when the products of his remarkable Advanced Weapons Lab could come in handy. The AXE Special Effects branch pioneered in esoteric weaponry, its devices always specialized, always effective, frequently lifesaving. For those that used them, that is. Others took it differently. Stewart, who ran the place, had the physician's benign attitude toward the AXE agents he served, looking on his products like cold tablets or warm gloves, good to have around. "I always like the boys to keep something of mine on them, just in case," he was fond of saying. I usually carried his stuff only when I intended using them for specific purposes on a mission. But he'd insisted one day not so long ago and now I was thanking him for it.

  The line of killers with their automatic weapons was coming closer. I opened the small and very ordinary-looking box of aspirin, clearly marked as such on the metal cover. I took out two of the «aspirin» and couldn't resist a smile. He had told me that if I had to take them for a headache they'd be of some effect and no harm. But now I was going to use them for a headache of a different land.

  I squeezed hard with my fingernails on the center of each pill, holding the pressure tight for thirty seconds. I could feel the soft centers give under the pressure. Inside the innocuous little pills, a triggering mechanism was activated by the pressure and a chemical process exploded into action. I waited another fifteen seconds and then tossed the two pills into the air, one to the right and one to the left as the killers drew close.

  Pressing myself flat to the ground, I waited, ticking off the seconds in my mind. In precisely ten seconds the pills exploded in a twin cascade of thick, gagging blue-black smoke-like substance. The cloud of choking smoky material mushroomed up and down but not out, forming a kind of curtain.

  I leaped to my feet and streaked across the clear space toward the house, safely hidden from view by the thick curtain. The stuff was choking and delaying, but not lethal, a smoke-screen in the form of a thick curtain of a heavy chemical. Once they made their way through it they'd be all right in moments except for some tearing eyes, so I didn't slow any. A rear window loomed ahead. Putting my arms across my face, I dived for it, smashing through the glass with a shattering impact, landing on the floor and somersaulting at once.

  I came up on my feet with Wilhelmina in hand, but a smallish man was holding Rita Kenmore in front of him, and I pulled my finger from the trigger a fraction of a second before it would have been too late. He was backing toward the door of the living room, and I saw that I'd landed in a ground floor bedroom. I moved toward him, half-crouched, looking for a chance for a clear shot. He kept the girl well in front of him. I watched for him to come up with a gun and start blazing away from behind her, but he had both hands holding her shoulders.

  Rita was wide-eyed, but more apprehensive than frightened and moving back with him without a struggle of any sort. It was clear she didn't fear him, and I swore under my breath. She had probably expected company. She was getting help in disappearing. More help than I realized. I moved after them, stepping into the living room, and the blows came at me from two sides just as I moved past the doorway.

  I caught the slight movement on my right and twisted away, but the guy on the left came down with a gun butt. It grazed my temple and I saw purple pinwheels for a moment. As I slid to the floor I yanked at his legs and he went over backwards. The other one leaped on me and I tossed him over my head. I'd managed to keep hold of Wilhelmina and I fired once, at point-blank range. The first man leaped convulsively and collapsed. The second one tried to scramble away and get his own gun up. My shot caught him in the chest, and the big 9mm slug bounced him against the wall.

  I'd started to turn when the blow descended. I caught a glimpse of the huge leg coming at me and half-turned away, but the kick caught me in the back of the neck. It would have torn my neck muscles apart had I not been on my knees. I went flying across the room to land on top of the dead man against the wall. Wilhelmina skidded from my hand and under a table and through glazed eyes I saw a huge form, a mountain of a man, the giant Sumo wrestler who had figured in the theft from Cumberland. He was moving toward me, a house with legs, and my own legs were definitely unsteady.

  I tensed my muscles, feeling them respond sluggishly as my head rang like a gong, my neck afire with pain. I came up from the floor at him, swinging out with a left, but my timing was way off as I still reeled dizzily. The blow landed high on his cheekbone, and he brushed it aside as though it were a gnat's bite. Huge hands grabbed me and I stretched out to find his face, but I felt myself being lifted and flung into the wall. I hit it so hard the plaster cracked. I sank to the floor, shaking my head, clinging desperately to consciousness and expecting another blow that would tear my head off. Dimly I heard the girl's voice calling.

  "Ready," I heard her say and the answering grunt from the wrestler. His footsteps receded, and I pushed myself from against the wall, rolled over and gazed with wavy focus across the floor. I spied Wilhelmina under the table, reached out and closed my hand around the Luger. Stumbling only once, my head still ringing and my neck fierce with pain, I lurched to the front door in time to see Rita Kenmore disappear into the back seat of the Chevy.

  Sumo Sam on the other side of the car saw me stumble from the house and aim a shot at him. He ducked as the slug tore a line across the roof of the car where he'd towered over it. A shot answered mine, and I hit the ground, rolled over and came up to see the black Chevy roaring away from the curb. I pegged another shot at it but only hit the trunk.

  Swearing, I was on my feet, running for the blue Cougar I'd parked around the block. As I reached the end of the house I remembered the killers in the woods and dived to the ground. Peering back to the woods, I saw the column of smoke still holding at the very edge. Three of the killers had come through it, but they were turning to go back into the woods. They'd seen the black Chevy take off, and their job was over. I hadn't time to chase them. The black Chevy held all the important pieces.

  I dove into the Cougar and sent it roaring in a tight circle. I caught a glimpse of the Chevy's rear as they turned a corner ahead, and I put the gas pedal on the floor. Reaching the corner, I took it on two wheels, listening to the screech. I saw their tail careen around another corner and I took after them. I could see them ahead now; they were turning onto a paved service road that paralleled the more crowded expressway. Driving with one hand, I switched on the walkie-talkie and heard Hawk's voice crackle through.

  "It's me, Nick," I said. "No time to explain. Call alarm to stop black Chevy sedan, heading north on service road alongside expressway." I pressed the «off» switch.

  "Got it," Hawk said. I switched on again. The Chevy had caromed around a sharp curve.

  "Hold it," I said, dropping the instrument onto the seat beside me to grab the wheel with both hands as I skidded the car around the corner. The rear end drifted wide but I managed to miss the street lamp.

  "Norbert Road," I yelled back into the walkie-talkie. "West on Norbert Road. Stay on the ready. Over and out."

  I pressed my foot on the accelerator and felt the car leap forward. The black Chevy was hitting ninety and Norbert Road was a succession of curves. Half the time I'd lose them and knew they were there only by the scream of their tires as they took a curve. Then I'd catch sight of them for a moment, until the next curve.

  The Chevy had the giant Jap, old Sumo Sam, plus the two smaller men and Rita Kenmore — over seven hundred pounds of weight to hold it down against my one-ninety. They gained a little bit at each curve because of it. I roared around a sharp one and almost went into a spin, the wheel fighting me furiously. When I pulled out of it and onto the straightaway, they weren't in sight and
I frowned. But there was another curve, an easy one just ahead and I cut it beautifully hitting the straight section beyond without slowing down. The black Chevy was still nowhere in sight. I went on a few hundred yards more and hit the brakes, skidding to a halt. Reversing, I made a fast turnabout and headed back the way I'd come, cursing into the wind.

  The opening was on my right, a small entranceway in a long, wooden fence which I'd shot past before without even seeing. It was the only possible spot. They must have gone in there. I turned into the entranceway and found myself going down a steep dirt grade. The car hit the bottom bouncing like a baby buggy and I burst out of the door with the walkie-talkie in my hand. I was inside a huge construction area, with big stacks of culvert pipe and steel beams, huge generators still on their wooden skids, the steel framework of a half-dozen structures and dirt roads and paths in all directions. But there was no black Chevy. They had plenty of places to hide in here.

  I lifted the walkie-talkie to talk with control when the fusillade of shots rang out from three different directions. I felt the wind of the slugs tearing through the air and slamming into the metal of the Cougar. I half-slipped, half-dove for the ground just as one bullet struck the walkie-talkie in my hand. It shattered the instrument, and I closed my eyes and turned away as small slivers of metal flew into my face.

  I felt the tiny trickles of blood running down my right cheek, but that wasn't anything. It was my arm, numb and tingling as though I'd been sleeping on it for hours. The walkie-talkie slipped from my numbed fingers as the second cluster of shots echoed in the recessed area. I rolled under the car and felt a bullet crease my leg. I wanted to yank out Wilhelmina and return their fire but my hand and arm were still numb. I couldn't have held a water pistol. From beneath the car I heard the sound of feet running on the earth and then I saw them, coming toward the car from both sides.

  I rolled on my back and, twisting my arm, pulled at the Luger with my left hand. I'd just gotten it free when one pair of footsteps vaulted into the car and I heard the sound of the engine roar into life. Dropping the Luger, I rolled over on my stomach as the car backed up, the transmission scraping my temple. The driver twisted the wheel and I saw the frame move to the right and the rear tires dig into the earth and race at me.

  I flung myself to the left and the right rear tire scraped my shoulder as it hurtled past, and then the car was no longer on top of me, but I heard the screech of brakes and the clash of gears as the driver shot it into reverse. I'd half-lifted myself from the ground as the Cougar shot at me. I dived again, flattening myself, pressing into the earth, and I cried out in pain as the transmission shaft scraped over my shoulder blades. The driver stopped before he'd gone all the way past me, shot the gears into forward again and spurted ahead. I stayed flattened and once more the car shot out from above me. This time I gathered myself and dove forward, rolling in a somersault. I'd just reached the end of it when I felt the huge hands grab my shoulders and lift me up.

  I managed to plant one foot firmly enough, and half-spun around to see the giant Japanese and beyond him, my Cougar with the man getting out of it. I tried a backward blow at the huge man but he flung me down like a sack of potatoes and I landed half over a wooden crate. For all his size, the Japanese was quick as a cat, and he was on me as I hit the crate. I swung but he brushed the blow aside with an oak-like arm, and his counter-punch sent me sailing through the air.

  I landed on the back of my neck, did a reverse flip and saw pretty lights of pink and yellow and red. I shook my head and pulled myself upright to find that, in reflex action, Hugo was in my hand and I was lashing out in short, vicious arcs. But I was slicing only thin air, and I heard the sound of a car engine starting up, a familiar sound.

  Shaking my head to clear it further, I saw my blue Cougar starting up the dirt ramp. I ran around the edge of the crate and fell to the ground where Wilhelmina lay. I got one shot off at them, more in frustration than anything else, as they disappeared out the exit ramp. I heard the sound of the car receding, and I put the Luger back in its holster.

  They were off and running, and Hawk had the cops out looking for a black Chevy. I decided to do the same and found their car behind a long generator. They'd left the keys in it. I drove it out of the construction site and down Norbert Road. A police helicopter appeared overhead and I waved at it. Minutes later I was surrounded by flashing yellow and red lights and a cordon of police cruisers. I climbed out, talked fast, and they let me contact Hawk via their radio. I straightened things out and gave them the new description of the blue Cougar.

  "Hell, friend," one cop grimaced. "They could have taken off in any damn direction by now."

  "Seek and ye shall find," I said. He gave me a disgusted look as he closed the door of his patrol car. I got back in the black Chevy and headed for the Carlsbad house. I'd go over every damn inch of it and see if it yielded anything. So far Rita Kenmore's idealistic, sincere, dedicated uncle, out to make the world listen, had been responsible for four deaths — the two guards at the Cumberland operation and now the two FBI agents. But that figured, too. I'd long since learned that there was nothing so calloused as the idealist who thinks he's got his hand on the true light. Nothing matters except his quest.

  * * *

  I was thinking about the girl as I approached the Carlsbad house, fairly certain she didn't know how deeply her uncle had dug himself in. Maybe she wouldn't really find out until it was too late. Or maybe she'd find out and look the other way.

  I pulled up in front of the house and got out slowly. My body cried out in protest, every muscle of it. It made me remember that I not only had a deadly virus to find but a score to settle. The front door was open and I started with the girl's bedroom where I'd seen the open traveling bag on the bed. She'd obviously just tossed a few things into it because most of her clothes were still in the closet with a few pieces lying on the floor. I was about to leave the room when my eye caught a glitter of silver, and I reached down to pick up a small object, not unlike something from a locket or a key chain. A few links hung loosely from the circular piece of silver. Set into the metal was a piece of something that looked like either ivory or bone. Someone had torn it loose and dropped it in the haste to get Rita Kenmore's stuff together. I put it in my pocket and started through the rest of the house.

  It revealed absolutely nothing until I reached a little room, hardly more than a cubbyhole, with a tiny, desk in it and a few shelves. On the shelves were large, fastened-together bundles of check stubs; in the desk drawer I found a checkbook of the three-hole business variety. As I pored over the check stubs, it suddenly became clear why Carlsbad had been living in this ramshackle old house.

  His monthly pay was carefully entered each time and following the entry came a random assortment of checks in varying amounts all made out to an account in a bank in Hokkaido, Japan. Some of the stubs bore cryptic notes: payment; cars; food. Most of them bore no explanation whatever. But as I did a rapid count, I saw that over the past few years it had involved a helluva lot of money. To say he'd merely been salting it away was too simple an explanation. The whole thing smelled of preparation, funds sent to someone or someplace to be used for a certain event or time.

  I'd just gathered all the stubs under my arm to take them and dump them in Hawk's lap when it happened. The whole goddamned house blew up under me. It's funny, when things like that happen, what you remember and note first I heard the roar of the explosion, like a volcano erupting, and I heard myself swearing as I was catapulted upwards and out of the little room.

  "The bastards!" I yelled as I hit the side of the doorjamb and went sailing across the hallway. "They left a time bomb." I was conscious enough to recognize that one thing for a brief, flashing moment, and then the stairs rose up to meet me as I landed on them. There was a second explosion as the furnace blew. I felt my lungs closing down as the rush of turbulent, poisoned air hit me. I half-recall large chunks of plaster and wood descending on me and trying to cover my head with my a
rms, and then the blackness closed in on me as a sharp pain flashed through my head.

  I came to, probably not more than a few minutes later, and my blurred eyes finally focused on a scene of wreckage and debris. But worse than that, as I lay there, my mind slowly orienting itself as to who I was and why I was lying amid all this rubble, I felt the hot air and saw the orange flaring of the flames. It was very hot, terribly hot, and as I pulled myself up to my hands and knees I saw that the place was a sheet of flame. I'd fallen down to the first floor as the second floor collapsed, which had saved my life. The roof was now the second floor with tongues of fire licking out through openings in the debris. I was surrounded by towering flames, which were working their way toward the middle of the rubble and me.

  I tied my handkerchief around my face as I started to cough. It was a small, almost useless gesture, but seconds become terribly precious when life seems to be slipping away. A wind from somewhere, probably created by the vacuum of the fire itself, shot a long tongue of flame across the rubble directly at me. I scrambled backward and felt myself crashing through the shattered floorboards. I grabbed at them, caught one splintered edge for a moment and then it gave way, too. But it had held long enough to break my fall and I landed unhurt on the cellar floor.

  The place was choking with smoke and dust from the exploded furnace, but I managed to glimpse light in a far corner. I climbed over twisted pipes and blocks of concrete toward it and felt a movement in the air. It was like the sight of water to a parched man and I pressed on, tearing my leg on a piece of jagged metal. It was suddenly before me, sunlight and air, still filled with the choking dust, but nonetheless air from a back cellar entrance, and I stumbled out into the open, still feeling the heat of the flames behind me. I fell down on the grass and lay there, gasping in great gobs of air as I heard the fire truck sirens approaching. I was getting to my feet with the handkerchief still hanging from my face when they rolled up to the front of the house, now nothing but a roaring tower of flames.