Tom Hyman (20 page)

Lexy raised her voice. “Goddamnit, call them! Quick!”

She put the phone down and tiptoed to the door. A sheet of paper taped over the small window stopped about an inch short of the bottom. Lexy bent down and peered out. She could see a short stretch of corridor.

Directly across it was the open door into Goth’s laboratory. The doctor was in there. Three other men were with him. One held Goth’s arms pinned behind his back; another was poking a pistol against his chest. The third male was pulling what looked like blocks of clay from an overnight bag and sticking something into them. He prepared about a dozen blocks in this manner, then began attaching them to various surfaces around the room—to the underside of a counter holding a lot of expensive-looking computer equipment, beneath a sink, under a large wall of shelves stocked with boxes, books, and lab equipment. Plastic explosives?

Lexy groped her way back to the telephone and tried the switchboard again. The phone was dead.

She looked down at Anne. The thin rectangle of light shining though the door’s small window fell across her face. Her eyes were closed.

She was resting between spasms. In another minute she would be thrashing and groaning again. The baby could come out with the next big push. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what a nightmare.

Lexy rushed to the window. She could still see Goth and the two men guarding him. They were arguing. The third man suddenly appeared in the corridor. He opened the door to the room next to the lab and looked in. Then he went to the next door down and Lexy lost sight of him.

Lexy felt around for something to block the door. She found a metal chair and wedged it under the doorknob. Then she slid two other chairs and a large chest of drawers behind the chair. The tile floor had recently been waxed. A good hard shove from the other side of the door would likely push everything right back across the floor.

Anne started to moan. She clutched Lexy’s hand and writhed on the bed, pulling her knees up to try to ease the pain.

Lexy tried to quiet her. She wiped Anne’s brow with a damp cloth.

Where the hell are the police? Why don’t they get here? Oh God, why don’t they get here? “Hold on, Annie. It’s going to be okay.” She wished she could believe it.

The doorknob rattled. Voices in the corridor grew louder. Lexy could see the silhouettes of two heads through the glass. They began pushing hard against the door. The chairs and the chest squeaked backward along the tile floor, and a vertical wedge of light from the hallway appeared along the edge of the door frame.

The wedge widened. Someone squeezed partway in, then braced himself against the doorjamb and shoved the furniture back several feet. He groped for the light switch. The overhead fluorescents blinked on.

It was the man with the gun—the one who had been questioning Goth. He walked into the room, then hesitated, confused by the sight of Anne and Lexy. He said something to them in German.

Anne opened her eyes and groaned.

The man stepped over. Lexy bent protectively over Anne. “Get out of here!” Lexy cried. “I’ve called the police!”

He pressed the pistol against the side of Lexy’s head. “Who are you?”

he demanded.

Lexy began trembling violently. “Get the hell out!”

A loud pounding at the far end of the corridor interrupted them.

Someone yelled “Polizei!” several times.

The man took one last look at Anne and Lexy and then ran out into the corridor. Frantic shouts greeted him. Through the open doorway Lexy saw him drop to his stomach and train his pistol down the corridor and open fire. Magnified by the long cement-block corridor walls, the shots sounded like exploding grenades. They were answered by a deafening burst of automatic weapons fire.

The walls vibrated from the racket. Cement dust choked the air. The man on the floor tried to stand up. Blood ran from his mouth and ears.

More gunfire. He jerked backward, as if caught by a sudden gust of wind, then leaned forward, his arms flung out in front of his chest in a vain effort to ward off the fusillade of bullets tearing through him.

He sank down face-first onto the floor.

Lexy lunged against the door to close it. A ricocheting bullet struck her near the shoulder, spun her around, and knocked her down. Her left arm felt numb. She crawled to the door and managed to get it shut, then struggled over to Anne’s bed.

Wild shouting in the halls. Something exploded. The blast blew the door in on a cloud of stinking gray powder. More shouting, and the frantic pounding of boots on the tile floor.

Through the ringing in her head Lexy heard Anne screaming.

She sounded faraway. She tried to pull herself onto the bed to protect her. She lacked the strength.

She felt dizzy. The room was growing dark. She tried to raise her head up but couldn’t. She blacked out, came to for an instant, then blacked out again.

When she surfaced a second time, the dust in the room had settled somewhat. Her blouse was wet with blood. Anne’s screams had faded to a continuous moaning.

A man was coming toward her. She tried to yell for help, but all she could manage was a hoarse shriek. There was no one to help them, anyway. She tried again to pull herself onto the bed.

God, please help us. Somebody please help us.

The noise from inside was growing louder. Several of the French doors were open, and partygoers were spilling out onto the terrace. The atmosphere of civilized restraint from earlier in the evening had completely vanished, washed away by the free-flowing alcohol. Guests were yelling or singing in loud voices. Others were dancing lewdly, embracing, rubbing against one another. Many were too drunk to stand.

Stewart could see a young male lying prone on the floor just inside one of the French doors. Apparently he had passed out, but there was a small pool of blood by his mouth. People were stepping over him as they walked through the doorway.

Stewart felt the baroness’s hand traveling along the inside of his thigh.

“We should do something to celebrate,” she said.

“Kissing is traditional,” he replied. He slipped an arm around her shoulder and kissed her. The moist, warm softness of her lips, the mixture of champagne and perfume aroused him powerfully.

She pushed him away gently. “Kissing hardly seems enough to welcome in a whole new millennium,” she cooed.

Waves of cheering and applause thundered out from the main ballroom.

The countdown of the last minute of the old year had started.

A sudden shock of cold wetness in the crotch made Stewart jump. He looked down. The baroness had spilled champagne on his pants.

She giggled. “I’m really very sorry.” She rubbed her hand against the wet area. His penis became instantly rigid. She pulled his hand up under her dress. “Take my underpants down,” she instructed. “Hurry.

“ He reached up along her thighs with both hands and pulled her panties down over her knees. She braced herself against his shoulder and stepped out of them. They were white silk, with a broad trimming of lace, and they reeked of that same intoxicating perfume.

She lifted her gown up to her waist, leaned back against the stone parapet, and opened her legs. He moved between them and they kissed again, this time with an angry passion.

The baroness clutched Stewart’s head between her hands and pushed him down. He knelt awkwardly on one knee. She entwined her fingers in his hair and pressed his face into her belly.

A church bell in town began to chime midnight. Seconds later, another church bell began. And then a frenzied roar came from inside the palace and grew in volume until the terrace began to shake.

Dalton Stewart, his ears squeezed firmly between the baroness’s thighs, could hear nothing except the wild beating of his heart.

The man coming through the door was black. Lexy had not seen him with the other men around Goth. “Please tell me you’re the police,” she groaned.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

Lexy bent over Anne. “She’s trying to have a baby.”

“You have to get her out of here. Right now. Come on.”

Cooper got behind Anne’s bed and began pushing her toward the door. On its big castors the bed rolled easily. Lexy followed, cradling her wounded arm. The hallway was choked with dust, but deserted. A shot rang out from somewhere in the building.

Lexy crouched forward and ran.

A short distance down the corridor Cooper steered the bed around a corner toward an emergency exit. He yanked the door open, but the bed was too wide to fit through.

Lexy stumbled. She felt on the verge of passing out. She watched the black man lift Anne up out of the bed. It looked as if both of them were about to fall over. Another burst of gunfire rattled through the corridors. What in God’s name were they shooting at? she wondered.

Were they mad? She moved to Anne’s other side. Anne managed to stand, but she was bending far forward to relieve her pain. Slowly, they maneuvered her through the door.

It was completely dark outside. They were somewhere around the back of the hospital. Lexy felt soft grass underneath. They walked Anne a short distance further and then lay her down on a sheet on top of the grass. Cooper positioned her on her back and propped her knees up.

Between sobs, Anne panted noisily for air.

Lexy wanted to do something to comfort her, but she felt too weak to move. She knelt down beside her and held her hand.

“You know what to do?” Cooper asked.

Lexy shook her head. “No, goddamnit! Go get us help!”

The ground suddenly heaved beneath them as if from an earthquake. A row of windows in the hospital wing blew out in a bright flash, then subsided into curling billows of black smoke.

Cooper jerked his head around and swore under his breath.

Without another word he scrambled to his feet and headed back toward the exit door they had just come through. Another explosion blew out more windows.

Anne arched her back and screamed.

Harold Goth struggled to his feet. A thick, stinking pall of smoke hung in the air.

He thought about putting a water-soaked cloth over his mouth and nose, but knew he didn’t have time. He dropped to his hands and knees.

There was less smoke near the floor, but he was already choking from the acrid fumes.

He crawled toward his computer on the workbench along the far wall.

When he got there, he reached up for the program cartridge and tried to pull it out. The plastic was scorching hot. He snatched his hand back and forced his face up closer to the computer. He rubbed his eyes.

The machine’s plastic housing had been destroyed by the explosion. The cartridge disk was fused to the computer’s frame.

The smoke was beginning to suffocate him, and it was getting intensely hot. Goth lay close to the floor, coughed, sucked in a rasping breath, and then struggled to his feet and dashed toward the filing cabinet in the closet next to the lab’s lavatory. The cabinet contained the only backup copy of the Jupiter program.

He reached the cabinet, grabbed the handle of the top drawer, and tugged. It was locked. He jerked hard on the drawer, but it refused to budge. The key was in his attache case.

Goth dropped back to the floor and began searching for the case. He was certain he had left it by his desk, but he didn’t see it there. He crawled along in front of the workbench, looking around the floor. It was nowhere in sight. He began to panic.

Then he saw it, wedged in a shelf under the bench. He pulled it out.

A hand reached swiftly around from behind him and grabbed the attache case by the handle. Goth wrapped both arms around it and held on. The two men struggled for a few seconds. Then Cooper punched Goth once hard in the face and yanked the case free. He disappeared with it through the smoke.

Goth rose from the floor, choking and coughing, and staggered back toward the file cabinet. He pulled at the cabinet drawer in one last desperate effort to open it. The whole cabinet fell forward and pitched over on its side. Goth sank to his knees, his hand still clutching the top drawer pull. His eyes were watering so fiercely he couldn’t see. His nostrils and his mouth were stinging with pain. He couldn’t catch his breath.

Another charge exploded. This one had been set under a shelf full of chemicals just behind Goth’s back. The blast shattered the jars and sent liquid chemicals spurting in every direction.

In an instant Goth was bathed in burning liquid. He slid face down against the floor, his hand still clutching the file cabinet handle.

Cooper rushed out the emergency exit, ran over to a lighted window near where the wing joined the main part of the hospital, and yanked open the attache case.

There were papers in it, and a key, but no cartridge disk. He threw the case onto the grass and kicked it. He looked at the wing. There was no going back. The whole place was ablaze.

Lexy crawled over between Anne’s legs. She reached toward Anne’s belly and in the dark felt a hard, round, slippery object.

Oh God, she thought. Where’s Goth? “Push, Anne,” she whispered.

“Push.”

Anne cried out again—a long, anguished moan, directed skyward. Lexy felt the baby come squirming out into her hands. Dr. Goth, where the hell are you?

There was a tremendous wave of noise. It was deep and allencompassing, like the noise of a crowd at a college football rally—the honking of horns and the deep-throated cheering of a hundred thousand voices.

Midnight.

Overhead the black sky blossomed with fireworks. Bright flowers of blue, red, silver, and green exploded with concussive booms and rippling crackles, lighting the patch of lawn around them as brightly as day.

The baby cried lustily.

Lexy held the infant against her. She saw the umbilical cord. It was wrapped around the baby’s leg. She pulled it free, then glanced toward the hospital wing. It was engulfed in flame. Goth was never coming.

She held the baby close to her, took a deep breath, put the cord in her mouth, closed her eyes, and bit down hard.