The 4 Phase Man Part 12

"Are you the devil, Mr. Stone?"

Herb grinned. "Not in years."

"But you believe in h.e.l.l?"

For the first time, an air of seriousness crept over the spook across from the scholar. "Intimately."

"And would you consign my son's soul to it?"

"We make our own h.e.l.ls," Mr. Goldman. Mine in marble buildings; your son's on volcanic islands. He took a deep drag on the cigar. "Yours, in your heart."

Avidol nodded. "There is truth there. But there is a fundamental difference between my Jerry and you."

Herb laughed. "A great many, I'm sure. Care to be more specific?"

"What my son did, whatever crimes against his fellow-man and his G.o.d he may have committed, he did in the name of love."

"Love?"

"Love," Avidol said softly. "Love of country, of freedom; love of ideals you whispered into his ear even as you were perverting them. Jerry was a romantic warrior who might've been brought to understand, in time, that the true warrior-in the Jewish tradition-is the man who stands up for what he believes in, but never breaks G.o.d's laws."

"Thou shalt not kill and like that?" Herb sucked on his cigar. "Ever? Seems a bit limiting."

"Now you will tell me about my son, Avidol said after a moment's silence."

"I will? Why?"

"Because you have been entertained, and because you have learned what you needed to know."

"Which was?"

Avidol sadly lowered his head. "That I am an old man who-when confronted by sad realities and the stain of my loved one's blood-cares more about his son than his G.o.d's laws." At that moment, he seemed far older than his eighty-four years. "That I, like you, must bear my pain silently while seeking to end it."

Herb moved to the edge of the couch. "I don't know what's happened to your son. Not exactly anyway."

"But..."

Herb held up a cautionary hand. "What I do know is that something is very wrong. That someone is very wrong. And that someone has your son, for the moment anyway." He rolled the cigar in his mouth as he concentrated. "And I would very much like to know who that someone is."

"What do you want?" Avidol sensed something, fear maybe, deep down in this blank man with the insincere smile.

"The reality is," Herb continued as if he hadn't heard the old man, "Jerry will either be dead or free in the next twenty-four hours."

"You know this?" Avidol almost reached out to the man across from him.

"I know Jerry," was his cryptic reply. "If he contacts you, I'd like you to call me." He handed across a card with only a phone number on it. "I can be reached there twenty-four hours a day."

"And my son can trust you?"

Herb shrugged. "Well, he can count on me. Let's leave it at that, shall we?" He stood, starting for the door.

Avidol followed him out. "Why would you help him?"

Herb knocked the ash off his cigar into the fireplace. "Because I was once a romantic warrior as well." He exhaled deeply. "It's just that I grew up."

At the door, Avidol noticed the three large bodyguards standing just outside. "He will not come to me, Mr. Stone. We were finished years ago."

Herb b.u.t.toned his coat and smiled. "One of our first rules-us murderers and sinners-is that the only ones you can trust are those who've already betrayed you." He smiled. "If he can, he'll make contact."

Avidol watched him start down the stairs, carefully watched over by his phalanx of bodyguards.

"Shalom, Mr. Stone," the dedicated religious pacifist heard himself say.

"Peace?" Herb rolled the word on his tongue, then sadly shook his head. "Interesting idea." He chuckled bitterly. "Shalom, Reb Goldman. Shalom."

"I don't think you're appreciating the finer points of the exercise, Valerie, Canvas said pleasantly."

She strained against the iron grip of the man who held her facing the beaten man hanging from the ceiling beam. "What finer points?" she spat out. "That you can beat the h.e.l.l out of an innocent man?"

Canvas shrugged, then nodded, and the beating began again. Two men, taking turns hammering Xenos in the face and stomach with broom handles. Each strike raising large welts, or splitting existing ones bloodily open. "He may be a lot of things, Valerie, but innocent is not one of them."

A blow under Xenos's rib cage.

"And I'd hardly qualify this as a beating."

A blow to the face.

"More like a warm-up for the real grotesqueries to come."

Valerie shivered as she tried to look away from the blood-covered face and the swelling injuries. "You sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Her face was turned to continue watching. "What do you want?"

"Open the case," Canvas said simply.

"Or what?" You'll beat a stranger to death?

Canvas signaled for the beating to stop as he stepped between Valerie and Xenos. "I told you, this is just a warm-up." He smiled. "The main event comes when I let these rather talented gentlemen loose on your son and daughter."

He turned to Xenos, taking a towel and wiping the blood from his mostly swollen-shut eyes. "Somehow I don't think the tykes will stand up near as well as my friend here."

Valerie closed her eyes in the most tearing psychic pain of her life.

"What do you think, Jerry? Canvas asked as he gave Xenos a drink of cool water."

"Let me down and I'll show you, the wounded man somehow whispered through the agony."

Canvas shook his head. "I know you would," he said almost sympathetically. He turned back to Valerie. "It won't be pretty, it will be prolonged, and I will make you watch every moment of it, I promise you."

"Monstruo," Valerie cried.

The big man shrugged. "Mi madre lo quiere." He waved the men from the room. "I'll give you a few minutes to think about it." He looked over at Xenos. "Give her some good advice, man. I don't think she gets it." He started out of the room.

"Colin?" Xenos's voice was surprisingly strong and clear.

"Yeah?"

"Let it go, man."

The man turned, regarding Xenos as he swung lazily in the air. "You wouldn't."

"I did."

A noncommittal shrug. "Which is why you're swinging and I'm making retirement bucks."

The door closed, locked, and they were alone.

"I'm sorry," Valerie whispered. "So sorry."

Xenos spat some blood from his mouth. "I don't really care right now."

"They're going to kill my babies," she moaned. "No matter what I do." She took in deep breaths, sobs mixing with calm until after five minutes she'd mostly recovered. "They're going to kill us all."

Xenos ignored her, staring up at the beam, the rope looped around it, the knots on each of his b.l.o.o.d.y wrists.

"I don't know who you are," Valerie continued with growing strength and resolve, "or if it'll make you feel any better"-she walked over to him, taking the towel and gently wiping his face clear of blood-"but when they come back, I'm going to end it."

Xenos studied her, thought about what he'd read about her, what he'd heard on his room tap. Despite the pain and his rapidly depleting resources, he easily slipped into a.n.a.lysis mode, then smiled.

Something about that smile chilled her to the bone. "If you kill them," then you guarantee your children's deaths, he said matter-of-factly.

"But they'll..."

Xenos looked down at her through slits of eyes, a broken nose, and blackened, seeping wounds. "Let me help you."

Ten minutes later Canvas, the interrogators, and three guards returned.

"Time's up," Valerie. He held up her case. "Either you open it now, with no tricks, or you can watch the destruction of the kiddies. Your choice."

Valerie's mind was racing.

Her nightmare existence had changed into a p.o.r.nographic hallucination into a demonic visitation. Sanity and madness merged, separated, mutated, and blew apart into billions of pieces all within the same second. Her ears filled with the rushing of her blood, her skin went cold, muscles tightened, eyes went in and out of focus.

"Valerie," Canvas said in an annoyed tone, "I'm waiting."

She took what she supposed to be a final breath, mentally said a private prayer for the souls of her children, then turned to the case.

First combination: 6-6-6.

Second combination: 0-1-8.

"Not that I don't trust you, dear," Canvas said as he placed the case on a chair in front of her. He waved everybody back to his side of the room, then nodded at the case. "If you please."

She closed her eyes for a moment. Then-her conscience clear, committed, ready-she snapped the latches up, turned each toward the outside of the case, then lifted the lid.

"Impressive," the first mumbled to Canvas as they watched her reach in for the files.

The b.u.t.t of the c.o.c.ked and loaded Browning slid easily into her hand, just the way she'd practiced.

First the one directly in front of you, then anyone to your right, then my shot-and don't freakin' miss-then the floor. Xenos's words echoed in her brain in the nanosecond between thought and action. Then she pulled back from the case.

The first shot exploded through the room, paralyzing everyone. It took off the top of the head of one of the interrogators. Before any reaction could set in, she'd already swung the gun around and fired a lethal shot into the chest of one of the guards. As she dropped straight to the floor, her arm flew straight up and she fired twice more.

Time seemed to stop, her mind expand, as she could plainly see the panic setting in across the room. The man they called Canvas dived for the door. A confused guard had got his gun caught on his jacket lining and died from her next shot. Another shot and another of the interrogators died. Too late, she saw two more guards-their guns already out-move to her right.

There was no chance, she would die, but not before she slapped the security case from the chair, activating the doc.u.ment-destruct device. Three seconds after it had started, she prepared to die ...as an animal's scream filled the air.

Something heavy fell on her, and she realized with a start that it was a body. She rolled out from under it just in time to see Xenos drop the second corpse-the man's head turned around facing backward with a stunned expression-on the floor by her. With a roar, he grabbed the man's gun and leaped out the door firing a nonstop barrage.

Praying she wasn't going insane, Valerie followed him.

They ran the length of the corridor, Xenos killing two more guards at almost point-blank range, their brains exploding over the fleeing couple. A door started to open behind them and Valerie fired three rounds into it. She heard something drop to the floor but never looked back.

They burst through the fire door onto the stairs, less than a minute after it had started.

"Up!" Xenos said in an urgent whisper.

"But..."

She never finished her confused thought as two men came through the door. Xenos threw her to the side and slammed into them. The first toppled over the railing, then caromed off concrete stairs for the next three floors. The other regained his balance-if not the gun, which had been knocked from his hand. He pulled a knife from his boot, but it was pointless. Adrenalized fury grabbed the man's hand, turning it up toward his face, driving it through his eye.

"Up!" Xenos yelled again as he grabbed the fallen gun and hurried up the stairs behind Valerie.

Two flights later they broke into the corridor, both taking deadly aim at the emptiness there.

Xenos led her slowly through the building.

"What now?" Valerie said, panting, trying to suppress the bile that had risen three-quarters of the way in her throat.

"Nice shooting," was all he said as he kept his eyes forward and moved slowly.

For the first time she saw the ragged rope at his right wrist, along with the wound she caused when she'd shot. The man was covered with blood-his and several others'-was wounded, broken in almost every possible way. But he seemed unaware of it, just a preternatural beast from h.e.l.l's depths wandering an office building looking for people to kill.

"They'll look downstairs first," he finally said as they paused by a drinking fountain. He cupped his hand and splashed water into his swelling-shut eyes. "We've got ten minutes," tops.

"Then what?"

Something across the corridor seemed to catch his attention. "Watch the elevators and the stairs. Anyone comes through"-he handed her his gun-"kill them."

Valerie couldn't breathe. Her heart was racing, the guns abnormally heavy in her grasp. "But what if it's some innocent guy coming to work?"