At which Agent Hauser collapsed heavily into a chair, moaning, “That’s one of my men you’re talking about! Gott in Himmel—oh, mein Gott!”
“What is wrong with these fuckin’ people!” Alan McGrath’s angry shout shattered the silence. He strode to where the immaculately clad waiter was still sitting in his chair, grabbed him by the lapels, and jerked him upright, sending the chair flying. “You,” he said, “ye fuckin’ zombie! What’s a’matter wi’ ye?”
“Bitte! Bitte!” the other protested, suddenly animated and flapping his hands.
“Sprechen sie fuckin’ Scottish?” the burly McGrath shouted into his face, slamming him against a panelled wall. “It’s best ye say aye, ’cos ah cannae speak kraut!”
Trask stepped forward. “Let him go,” he said. And turning to Hauser: “Will you translate?”
“Yes, yes,” said Hauser. He conversed with the waiter for perhaps five minutes, and all the while Trask’s people were becoming more and more nervous, anxious, impatient. Trask himself was feeling the tension; he took the team aside and said:
“Go to reception, see if you can find keys to the ground-floor rooms in the desk area. Then split into two teams. Check all the rooms, then lock the exit doors front and rear. If you can’t find the keys, then barricade the doors as best as possible. If you find people—live ones, that is—bring ’em back here. Millie, do you know how to use that machine gun?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “It’s a Swiss Special Forces issue. We got an hour’s practice on it at the range in London. It’s meant for close-quarter fighting and street clearance. It’s deadly in any enclosed area, but not so hot over twenty-five yards in the open.”
“That’s okay,” said Trask, “because we’re not going out in the open—not yet, anyway. You stay with me and Hauser. And as for the rest of you—go!”
“Wait!” said Paul Garvey. “Boss, there’s someone close by, I think in there.” He pointed at a door bearing the legend “Die Kuche.”
“That’s the kitchen,” said Chung. “It’ll be the cook.”
“Her thoughts are confused all to hell!” the telepath continued. “And they’re getting fainter by the second.”
“Okay,” said Trask, “Millie and I will see what’s up. The rest of you, do your thing. Norbert, continue finding out what happened here from his point of view.” He indicated the waiter. “But I’ll also want to know about it from yours, okay?”
“Yes, of course,” Hauser replied, if a little vacantly. “I shall tell you all that I can remember.”
“Good,” said Trask. “I’ll be right back.”
Trask and Millie went through into the kitchen, which was now in darkness. They were unable to find a light switch immediately, but a little exterior light was still finding its way in through a tall stained-glass window, and more yet from the dining room. A figure was silhouetted against the window, looking out. It was the homely old cook in her dirndl outfit, no longer singing as Chung had reported but softly crying to herself.
Millie and Trask approached her, and the latter used what little he knew of the German language to inquire: “Entschuldigen sie, Mutter—aber was ist, denn?”
“Was ist?” She turned her head and seemed to stare right through the pair, then went back to looking up and out into the night. She was looking at the gaunt high crag up there; looking at Schloss Zonigen where lights were now flickering as to illuminate a fantasy castle. The stained glass in the window loaned her its faint evening colours; her face was a ruddy red, green, golden—but the puddle at her feet was black. Held limply in her hand, a carving knife glinted dully in the gloom. Then she swayed, and they saw that her wrists dripped blood!
Trask leapt forward as she dropped, to catch and lower her before she could hit the floor, and Millie was by his side in a moment. “Was ist?” said the woman again, faintly. “Das ist. Was schlecht ist. Das Eisscholle Schloss. Schloss Zonigen!”
“God, she’s almost gone!” Trask groaned where he knelt, holding the woman’s head, knowing that from the knees down his trousers were soaking up her blood.
“Ah, English!” she whispered. “Yes, I go. To my children, who won’t come home again. Mein Kinder—mein zwei Sohne—die nicht . . . mehr . . . zuruck . . . konnen.”
“Your sons who can’t come home?” Trask believed that he’d understood her. “Why can’t they come home? Where are your sons, mutti?” But even as she spoke it with her last breath, he knew the answer:
“Schloss Zonigen!” she sighed. And her mouth fell open . . .
Later, in the reception area when the Gasthaus had been locked down, Trask spoke to Norbert Hauser.
“You were the leader of the team?”
“Yes,” Hauser answered tiredly. “They were my boys. I even trained them, but never thinking to come up against anything so entsezlich as this. And now all this death, and this hotel full of bodies. Can’t we do something about all the bodies, Trask?”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” said Trask. “And yes, we’ll do something—later. But for now I just need you to answer my questions. So there were . . . what, eight of you?”
“Yes. Those machine pistols were for our use if necessary. Frankly, I didn’t think it would be. The automatics were—”
“For us,” Trask finished it for him. “Big guns for the big boys, and little guns for the little boys, right? Forget it.”
“And just in case,” said Hauser, “the flamethrower.”
“What?” Trask sat up straighter. He and his crew knew all about flamethrowers. “You brought a flamethrower? Where is it?”
The other shrugged. “You didn’t find it? Dirk Braun was in charge of it. I think Dirk was in Zimmer nummer acht—er, room eight—next door to me. The device is a very compact model and fully fuelled: gases under pressure, which mix and ignite when the weapon is triggered. It will be in a metal case.”
Trask spoke to David Chung. “Locator, locate it.” And then to Alan McGrath: “Go with him.”
After the pair had hurried upstairs, Trask turned again to Hauser. “If you didn’t think weapons were really necessary, why a flamethrower?”
Again Hauser’s shrug. “Eh? Flamethrower?” His eyes looked glazed.
Paul Garvey spoke up. “His mind’s wandering again. The man is still in shock. He’s fighting hard but he keeps losing it.”
Trask and Hauser were in easy chairs by a small table with an ashtray. The Swiss agent’s head kept lolling and his eyelids would droop now and then. But Trask didn’t have time for any of that. He slammed a fist down on the table, which caused the ashtray to jump, then shouted, “Hauser! Wake the fuck up! I’ll ask you again, why did you bring a flamethrower?”
“Eh? What?” Starting massively, the agent snapped upright in his chair. “Oh, yes! I’m sorry. I must . . . must pull myself together, ja? The flamethrower. Swiss intelligence sources had told me that the big ice cavern up there, Schloss Zonigen, was probably full of crevices, bolt-holes, and inaccessible places. Once again I didn’t foresee any real problem, but on the other hand—”
“I get it,” said Trask with a nod. “Using a flamethrower, it’s easy to empty a dark cramped space without going in there and making yourself a target.”
“ Ja, exactly.”
“Okay.” Trask gripped the other’s forearm where it lay on the table, and said, “Now for God’s sake stay with it, Norbert, and tell me what happened.”
“ Ja, ja. Well, we were supposed to meet you at about 5:00 P.M. So we got here, oh, around 4:20, 4:30. We were early so I sent my men to settle in and went off on my own to have a look around the village, see if I could gather any intelligence. The police station—actually it’s a police post, served from Domodossola on an irregular basis—was locked up, empty. And while it was still full daylight I saw only a few people. But none of them went out of their way to speak to me.
“So I came here, to the Gasthaus, where I found my men in . . . in the condition that you’ve seen for yourself. All of them dead
in less than half an hour—and I had heard nothing—and I couldn’t, I didn’t—the terror, and the horror—it all fell on me like—something in my head just snapped. I got a machine gun, couldn’t find the ammunition. And the blood. And my men . . . !”
“Take it easy,” said Trask quietly.
“Mr. Trask—Ben? I cannot take it easy! I don’t even know what happened here. I don’t believe how it happened. Some of my men were—how do you say it?—inverted.”
“I haven’t seen all of your men,” said Trask. “But there’s a certain word I’ve learned. It’s evaginated.”
“I don’t know that word.” Hauser shook his head. “But when I saw . . . when I saw my boys . . . well, after that everything is just blank. I don’t remember getting into the wardrobe, hiding, but I suppose I must have.”
“Did you see Herr Alpenmann?”
“Who?”
“The desk clerk, the proprietor.”
“No. My men must have seen him, to check in and get their keys. But no, I didn’t see anyone. I simply went upstairs, and . . . and . . .”
“Okay, forget it,” said Trask. “Tell me about the waiter. What did he tell you?” He glanced across the room at the man in question. The waiter was on his own, sitting beside the desk on a steel-framed chair from the dining room. And staring at Trask and Hauser, he saw them glance his way.
“Ah! Herr Gruber,” said Hauser. “I think he knows something but he didn’t say much. I don’t think he dares to say anything! The only thing I got out of him: he said his wife is in Schloss Zonigen. Also that whatever is happening here will soon be over and she will be returned to him, but if he speaks a single word he’ll never see her again. Also, the few families that are left here: most if not all have members of their men- or their women-folk in Schloss Zonigen.”
“Hostages,” said Trask. “And with what those evil bastards up there can do to people—well, that explains a lot. You know something, Norbert? If we hadn’t been delayed en route, if we’d met you as planned, we might have been up there right now, dead as doornails along with your boys! And as for Herr Gruber: I’ve got a whole lot more than his wife to worry about. So—”
He stood up and made for the waiter—a serious misnomer, for Gruber wasn’t waiting. He was up off his chair and running, loping toward the big double doors leading out into the square. The doors were locked now, but that hadn’t occurred to him; or so it seemed.
“Grab him!” Trask shouted.
Tech McGrath was back downstairs with a metal case on his knees examining the contents. Closest to the doors, he put the flamethrower aside, jumped to his feet, made a dive for Gruber—only to hit the floor when the man somehow managed to evade him. But Gruber wasn’t trying for the doors.
Flanking the entranceway, a pair of circular stained-glass windows some two feet in diameter stood approximately four feet off the ground in the pine-panelled wall. Herr Gruber was desperate, determined to say nothing else. The window on the right was his target, and with a headlong dive to put McGrath’s best effort to shame, Gruber made his exit in a shower of shattered wooden latticework, coloured glass, and twisted lead beading.
“Damn!” said Trask, moving to the wrecked window. “I only wanted to know how those bastards up there do what they do.”
Coming up behind him, Paul Garvey said, “He’s frightened out of his wits, in a panic, doesn’t know which way to turn.”
The telepath was right, of course; out there in the night, Gruber lurched this way and that, a ghostly scarecrow skidding on the cobbles of the square. But he wasn’t alone.
“There’s someone else out there,” cried Millie. “There are several someones!”
“She’s right,” said Garvey as she joined them at the broken window and took his hand. And together they peered out into the darkness. “There’s at least three others. They’re furtive, intent, concentrating on their business—hunters!”
Trask nodded. “And we’re their prey. Which is more or less what I was expecting. Lights out, and listen everyone: don’t go showing too much of yourself at the windows.”
Even as he spoke there came flashes of light and the snarl of submachine-gun fire. It caught up with Herr Gruber as he ran across the night square with his hands fluttering. He cried out and lurched one more pace, then lowered his hands and fell flat on his face.
“Like rats in a compost heap,” Trask rasped as Ian Goodly put the lights out. “And those people out there have their orders: to shoot any rat—any damn one—who tries to leave. So if we want to live we have to defend this place. You two techs, Alan and Graham, take your crossbows upstairs, the back of the hotel; watch the car park. If we’re ever going to get as far as Schloss Zonigen we’ll need our vehicles. And don’t worry about friend or foe: we have to play their game now. Anything at all, if it moves out there, shoot it! Frank, where are you?”
Trask was speaking to the spotter Frank Robinson now, but the room was full of shadows and his eyes were still adjusting. “Are you getting anything? These hunters outside: are there any wild talents among them?”
“I feel nothing,” Robinson replied out of the darkness. “I think they’re just ‘ordinary’ killers.”
“Okay,” said Trask. “You and Paul get upstairs, keep watch from the front of the building.”
“Wait!” came Agent Hauser’s voice, sounding much steadier, controlled now. “Please, Ben, I shall go with Frank. I feel the need to . . . to hit back!”
Trask wasn’t too sure. “You’re certain you’ll be okay?”
“Bestimmt! I mean, absolutely.”
Trask nodded. “Okay, then go!”
Then Paul Garvey spoke up. “I’ll do the back, downstairs,” he said.
“And I’ll go with him,” said David Chung.
“Right,” said Trask. “So, Millie, Ian, you’re with me, and we’re staying right here. You’ve got your weapons? Good. Knock out that other round window and keep watch. It could get to be a very long night . . .”
37
Outdoors at Scott’s place in London, after a very warm day it was still muggy, breathless as the dusk came down. Sitting in a deck chair in the garden with a cool soft drink—frustrated and feeling wasted, with nothing as yet on which to expend his energy and his anger—it dawned on Scott how quiet Shania was and how she’d been that way for quite some time now. Wolf, too, sniffing about in the bushes with his tail down, oddly anxious and occasionally whining; both of them tense, uneasy.
Narrowing his eyes and sitting up straighter, Scott put his drink aside and watched Shania with a new, knowing intensity where she moved distractedly among weed-grown borders, her forehead lined with concentration. And suddenly, without reading her mind—respecting the privacy of her thoughts—still Scott knew that it was going to be soon. In fact:
“It’s now, isn’t it?” he said. And when she looked at him but didn’t answer he knew he must be right, sat back again and remembered what she’d told him when he’d asked her if there was any way to find out when the Mordris would act. Yes, she’d told him, there was, but it would be very dangerous . . .
“It will involve one of two things,” she had said. “I can either try to contact their minds from here, try to spy on the minds of the Mordri Three themselves—which of course carries the risk that they might detect my probe and attack me telepathically, three deranged Shing’t minds against my one—or we can use the localizer one last time, go to Idossola under the Alps, and see what we can learn from the people there. We will have to be there eventually . . .”
And while Scott had considered what she’d said:
“That, too, has an element of risk,” Shania had continued, “for a good many of the village people were already in the service of the Mordri Three the first and last time I was there, and there are certain to be more of them now. Also, since the Mordris are sure to maintain at least partial mental access to the people they control, it could be that through them they’ll discover us . . .”
And finally:
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“In the second case the risk is fairly small but it does exist. And since I’m loath to put you in danger—first because I love you, second because you’ve accepted that you’ve been endowed and I don’t want to move against the Mordris until you’ve learned how best to use your powers—I think the first option is the safest: I should attempt to infiltrate one of the Mordri minds, perhaps in the dead of night when they’re asleep, and so learn whatever I can. In which case I must also avoid the Khiff companion of whichever mind I choose. Alas, unlike the Shing’t, the Khiff only rarely sleep.”
That had been the basis of their first and what might yet prove to have been their last argument, for Scott wouldn’t hear of Shania placing herself in danger. “Then we’ll have to wait a while longer,” he’d told her, “maybe until there’s little or no time left at all! And as for using my so-called powers, if they exist, and if I really do have them: one of them makes my flesh creep, and the other”—he shook his head—“well frankly, it just baffles me. For one thing my math isn’t that good, and for another I don’t have any coordinates . . .”
At the time—it seemed like ages ago but was just a few days—that had been that: Scott wouldn’t for a single moment consider any plan that would put Shania in direct contact with the Mordri Three. He’d lost one love that way and without even knowing how or why. But now, this momentous evening—here and now in the garden, with the quiet and oppressive warmth threatening thunder—the simple fact that Shania hadn’t answered him threatened a different, far more deadly kind of thunder. For it told Scott that indeed this was it.
Shania read his mind and said, “Dusk is settling in and we should go inside. By now it’s dark in Idossola; perhaps you can shield me as I scan the area more deeply—but just the village itself—to see what I can discover.”
Wolf, no longer limping, now a handsome creature, soft and clean to the touch yet still feral in his yellow eyes and great sharp fangs, came loping like a night elemental from the dusky shrubbery, his tongue lolling.