Dream Thief (46 page)

Ortu seemed to consider this and then said, “Fazlul's men are here. Instruct them that the Governor is to intercept Reston on the road and bring him here at once. I will not risk losing him again.” Ortu's head sank once more; his eyes closed.

“As you wish, Ortu.”

“And the others—your hostages. You will eliminate them at once. It was foolish to bring them here. We have no use for them.”

“Yes, Ortu. I will do as you say.”

The incense rose in gray billows filling the chamber where Ortu sat like a statue. Hocking, almost choking on the fumes, gazed around the room he knew so well. As always it held a fearful fascination for him. This was the room where his master lived—Ortu had not stirred in forty or fifty years—and from this room he directed his will.

Hocking again regarded the wizened body before him and felt the heat of anger leap up in him. Ortu was patient beyond all human patience; he had waited a thousand years for his plans to begin to grow. He would wait a thousand more for them to bear fruit.
I cannot wait that long,
thought Hocking to himself.
We have a chance now; we must not wait!

Hocking had his own plans for the new world order which Ortu had designed and which would soon commence. It seemed ludicrous that one man, the stubborn Spencer Reston, should single-handedly halt their progress, and so close to the realization of their dreams. What was so important about Reston anyway? He was nothing—a worm to be crushed underfoot.

Someone had to be eliminated; Hocking saw that clearly. But it would not be Ari and her father; they would be needed until the station was secured. It was Reston who should be eliminated.

Hocking withdrew silently; his chair floated out on the clouds of incense and away. It was so simple he did not know why he had not thought of it before. Perhaps he had been afraid, but not now.

Very well, he would give Fazlul's men their instructions: Reston must never reach Kalitiri.

Yes, it was nearly ready. Things were falling together nicely. He went away almost humming to himself. His features had assumed that gruesome death's-head leer.

PACKER WAS NOT ASLEEP
when the intruder entered the darkened cell block. He had been lying on his couch staring up into the inky blankness when he heard the outer door slip open. When the lights remained off he knew something was amiss.

As quietly as he could he slid out of the couch and onto the floor of the cell; he rolled to the far wall and lay there waiting to see what would happen.

He waited so long that he began to think that he had only imagined the door opening. He was about to get back in bed when there came a distinct click followed by the slight rustling sound of clothing.

He froze.

Every sense was awake tingling with anticipation. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he peered into the darkness and tried to see any movement at all.

He held his breath.

There came another click and a pencil-thin shaft of blue light jabbed out and seared into the couch. The pulse lasted less than a nanosecond, and was followed by two more in rapid succession. Packer could smell the fumes of the composite fabric and the gel of the cav couch where the laser pulse had incinerated it.

He feared that whoever blasted his couch would now switch on the lights to view their handiwork. For a long agonizing moment Packer lay with his face to the floor, hoping against hope that the would-be assassin would leave.

Then he heard the quiet swish of the outer panel opening, and the intruder went away. A trembling Packer lay motionless and waited for someone to come and rescue him, praying that the killer would not return.

Time seemed to slow. Each minute dragged away painfully. Each second expanded to fill an eternity.

He waited.

At last Packer decided that the danger had passed. He stood warily and crept to the couch, fumbling for the light plate near the head. The light winked on and he stared down at the neat charred holes in the couch. Green gel from the support chambers bubbled out onto the orange fabric. The pulses had been calculated to burn through him; no doubt about that: three black rings in the couch—one where his head had been, one at his heart, and one at his midsection—any one of them would have killed him.

He was still standing over the couch, acrid wisps of smoke stinging his nostrils, when he heard a voice behind him. He whirled around, ready to dive for the floor, then recognized Ramm standing there watching him.

“You look a little shook up, friend,” said the Chief. “You okay?”

“Oh, it's you. Yeah, I'm all right. Someone tried to kill me.”

“Tried to
what?”
He punched in the access code and stepped through the door. “Are you joking?”

“I don't find
this
very funny,” said Packer. He pointed down at the damaged couch.

Ramm let out a low whistle and turned to Packer apologetically. “Man, you're lucky to be alive. If you'd been asleep they would have drilled you.”

“I wasn't asleep, thank God.” He looked down at the three holes oozing gel from the depression of his body still outlined in the couch. He shivered. “I want out of here, Ramm. The game has changed. These guys, whoever they are, want to play rough. Next time I won't be so lucky, maybe.”

Ramm raised a hand and stroked his jaw. “I don't know …”

“What do you mean you don't know? Look, this was supposed to be for my protection, remember? That's what you said. 1 wasn't protected very much, was I? I want out now!”

“Where will you go? Back to your quarters? To the lab? They'll be waiting for you.”

Packer had not thought of that. He threw his hands out to Ramm and said, “What's going on here? This is getting crazy.”

“You don't know the half of it. Come with me, we'll talk in my office.”

Packer followed the security chief out of the cell block and into his private office. Ramm sat down on the edge of the desk and folded his arms across his chest. Packer sat down in one of the visitor's chairs and ran his hands through his red bush of hair.

“You want some coffee? Something to eat?”

“Thanks, maybe later.” He waited for Ramm to begin.

“I found out a few things this afternoon that strike me as extremely odd. I think Kalnikov has disappeared—I can't seem to locate him anywhere. Williams is saying that due to Kalnikov's condition he was shipped out on the shuttle for medical assistance Earthside. I don't buy it. There's been one shuttle down in the past two days and no injured personnel aboard it according to the records.”

“Then where is he? What's happened to him?”

“I don't know. I think he's still aboard here somewhere. They could have stashed him anywhere.”

Packer got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He seemed to be riding a swift elevator down.

“Trouble is, it would take me a couple hundred man-hours to find him, and then the search would alert whoever it is that has him to move him somewhere else.”

“What about the guy who tried to kill me a few minutes ago?”

“It's between shifts. My second-shift crew hasn't signed on yet. No one saw anything, I'm afraid.”

“What kind of place do you run here?” Packer was quickly losing his temper. He had been cooped up in his cell for a day and a night and no one was on duty when the assassins struck.

Ramm dismissed his anger with a swipe of his hand. "I don't blame you for getting steamed. But you have to remember, we're not a police force—I mean, in a way we are, but this isn't a high-crime area. It isn't like a real city. Mostly we just make sure that people stay out of construction areas and watch the locks on the restaurant pantries after hours, that sort of thing.

“We weren't expecting a strike. You've got to consider that a place like Gotham isn't exactly equipped to handle an armed insurrection. It isn't in the blueprints. Nobody planned on that ever happening.”

“Well,” grumbled Packer, “maybe it's time that somebody started planning for it—if it isn't already too late.”

T
HE CAMP OF THE
bandits looked less like a camp and more like a gypsy village than anything Spence had ever seen. Tents of scrap cloth and tarp sewn together, draped over branches or supported with poles scavenged in the jungle, gave the place a wild, fanciful appearance. Small children scampered half-naked to see the odd-looking visitors. Old men sat around the ashes of the previous night's fire nodding and pointing and clacking toothless gums as the raiding party returned with the booty. Women came running to see what their men had brought home for them. Over all an air of whimsical gaiety prevailed.

It was hard for Spence to imagine that these peaceful, happy people made their living killing the unlucky and robbing the unwary. He had expected the outlaw's hideaway to be a snake pit, dark and hateful, full of desperate men whose way of life made them vicious and unruly.

That these thieves had families that ran laughing to meet them amused him.

“Quite a picture,” Spence whispered to Adjani as they moved down a wide avenue between tents and shelters made from empty cargo crates. Children ran along beside them giggling and pointing in the manner of excited children everywhere.

“Don't let it fool you. Spencer.” Adjani spoke softly and peered with narrowed eyes at the leader of the bandits walking just ahead of them. “The cheerful highwayman is the more dangerous. Believe me, these men will not hesitate to disembowel us in front of their wives and children if it pleases them.”

Spence thought Adjani was being melodramatic about their situation. But Gita, whose tongue had not stirred the whole of the trek into the jungle, rolled his eyes and quivered, saying, “Adjani knows of what he speaks, Spence Reston. Listen to him. These men are cutthroats for all their easy ways.”

“But you can't think they'd harm us now. We have nothing of value.”

“Don't you see? They have lived too long above the law; they have become secure, fearing nothing. Such men do not shrink from the worst deeds imaginable.”

Gita nodded his agreement readily, so Spence said no more about it. Still, he found himself smiling at the children and gawking around the camp as if he were a tourist on holiday.

They had marched all night and rested only a few hours before striking off again. Now the sun stood high in the sky, filtering down through the leafy green canopy above. The prisoners were paraded through the camp and brought to the biggest tent and made to sit down under a large patchwork awning between two guards while the bandits proceeded to divide up the night's harvest of merchandise piled in the center of the settlement.

The shouting of the men and shrieking of the women was still in full chorus when the leader disengaged himself from the swarm around the goods and came to stand before them. The guards prodded the prisoners to their feet with their rifle muzzles.

The bandit leader, a huge hulk of a man with a spreading belly concealed beneath his flowing kaftan, eyed them with interest, and then spoke rapidly to Gita. Gita touched his forehead and bowed low. The leader pushed through them and went into his tent.

“His name is Watti and he wants us to follow him,” explained Gita.

“After you,” said Spence, and the three went into the leader's dwelling.

Though the interior was dark, the patchwork let in irregular splotches of light, decorating the inside with a speckled pattern that lifted and flowed as the tent breathed in the jungle breeze.

The
goonda
chief led them to a far corner and opened a flap in the side of the tent. Sunlight streamed in upon a bed of cushions on which a young boy rested so still that Spence thought at first he was dead.

Here was the reason they had been brought. The chief of the brigands wanted them to heal his son—that much at least needed no words. The look of the thief's face told as much as he gazed upon the boy's limp form. Likewise, his curt order to them left no doubt about their fate should their combined medical art fall short of curing the boy. A leisurely, painfully protracted death would commence immediately. That Spence also gathered without an interpreter.

Gita fell to his knees and began untying his linen sacks and rummaging through them. There were hags within bags, but he found one he wanted and opened it and drew out an old-fashioned stethoscope which he put on and immediately displayed his best doctorly manner, hovering over the boy and listening through the obsolete instrument.

Chief Watti seemed pleased and left them to their business.

“I hope we have enough medicine between us to do some good,” remarked Spence when they were once again alone.

“It seems we have no choice,” replied Adjani.

“His breathing is shallow and very light.” Gita frowned. “He may be beyond help.”

Adjani knelt over the patient and placed a hand on his forehead. “He's on fire! The boy is burning up with fever.”

“What else do you have in your sack, Gita? Any drugs? Medicine?”

“Nothing much—novocaine, aspirin, a few antibiotics. I'm a dentist, remember.”

“The antibiotics might be some help,” said Adjani. “If we could only figure out what's wrong with him.”