The Daisy Ducks Read online

  Second bend now . . . around it. Glory be: a light. The light was not close and it was a small bulb, almost around a rock corner from my line of sight. It was obviously placed there so people could find their way in the perpetual darkness. It wasn't there for direct illumination. I went for it, looking around me as I walked. I glanced at my watch. Almost ten minutes had elapsed of the half-hour deadline. We had twenty minutes left until the fresh crew woke up. I walked past the light with my rifle held at the hip. I prayed more than anything that there would be no shooting. I passed the light, turned to my right, and saw the cave open up. Was it a cave or a mine? Who knew? Who cared? In back of the room were stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes. As I sneaked past them I looked closely. Most had the three-diamonds trademark of Mitsubishi or whatever it is, that huge Japanese conglomerate that makes everything from autos to transistors. What was in the cartons? Auto parts? No. Tunafish. Tunafish? That's what it said: chunk light tuna, in water and oil. Looked like five thousand cans of it. Looked like restaurant grade, wholesale. Why all the tunafish? Was Royce smuggling something other than dope?

  Then I remembered: young Darryl had said that Royce was a survivalist, a man waiting for nuclear war to destroy civilization. And I had read somewhere that currency in the post-nuclear age would consist mainly of two items: 22-caliber cartridges and cans of tunafish. So I was looking at his nest egg, his private hoard of survivalist currency. Like as not, the ammunition was in some other passageway. In a cave, no less. So we'd be back in caves for a few thousand years after the fireballs died out. And then we'd learn to hunt wild game and wear their skins and fur when it got cold. Generations later, we might scratch the soil with the sharpened femurs of elk and bison (or perhaps the tusks of woolly mammoths, if they decided to come back too) and put seeds in. We'd start training dogs again, if any were left. One day a young woman might have the temerity to mix sacrificial blood with soot and ocher in her tough palm, sneak into the farthest corner of the clan cave where she would not be seen, and by the faint light of a tallow lamp begin with trembling hands to draw a crude wall painting of the beasts of the fields . . .

  Oh, it was a cheery thought.

  I went on, making a gradual turn to my right. Ahead, I could see what appeared to be a second room, bigger than the first, barely lighted with several of the tiny bulbs. The light shone against the rock walls so faintly that the shape and size of the place were not clear. But it was big—much larger than the small seepway I had crept through. A dark circle at its far end was the main entrance. The place smelled of damp rock and wood smoke. I saw a fire-blackened section of wall on the far side and the remains of a fire below.

  Men were sleeping on the floor of the cavern on army cots. I stayed in the near-darkness of the rear of the cave and swept the prone figures with my binoculars. They gathered enough of the feeble light and magnified the images enough for me to see them. One man stirred in his cot. Probably the guy who'd just returned from his call of nature. Then I saw Daisy. What was holding her? Some kind of shackle. Could we cut it off? Pick the lock? Blast it apart without maiming her? Roantis would know. It was dark in there; the lights were barely strong enough to allow people to see where they were going. The one in the passage was probably burning all the time, and no doubt they all were powered by a generator like the one Royce had hidden in the old pump house back at the farm. If I could get to that generator and kill the lights, perhaps I could sneak up to Daisy and free her to run out the front entrance.

  No, I'd better wait for Roantis.

  But where was he? And Kaunitz and Summers? They were supposed to have worked their way around to the front by now. Time was getting short. I decided to go back, find Roantis, and tell him about the passageway; it might change our plans and make things easier. But I had to hurry.

  I crept back into that cramped passageway, which smelled like a new sidewalk, and wriggled and squirmed my way through it. If it was so hard to get through, why had the man decided to use it rather than the main entrance? But I didn't have time to consider this fully because then I was fighting my way through the tangles of brush and creepers again back to the narrow ridge. I looked up; the cloud cover was thinning and the stars shone brightly. It was lighter out; it would be dawn pretty soon. I walked as fast as I dared, half bent over and holding the Colt at my hip. I was shivering. I didn't think it was from the cold. The path on the ridge wound down and to the left. After I'd gone about forty yards, I saw a pale yellow opening in the cliff ahead of me, some twelve feet above the path I was on. That was the entrance I had just seen from the inside. I went on, and soon more of the place was visible. Below the entrance and to the side stood the flatcar we'd seen on the spur earlier. In the dark, I could see it only through my glasses. The spur ran on past the cliff and continued westward. Near the flatcar was a clearing. I could barely see the cartons and other supplies stacked on pallets. The clearing was ringed with woods. Roantis, Summers, and Kaunitz would be in there; all I had to do was find them.

  I left the path twenty yards from the clearing and took cover in the trees. It was a good thing too, because after creeping forward a ways, I went to the edge of the bush and had a peek. I looked up at the entrance and saw what I had suspected: a sentry on watch just below the lip of the hole. He had a good view of the clearing and would have seen me approach on the path.

  Now it was obvious to me why the Ducks had been delayed: the entrance twelve feet up a sheer cliff and a sentry to guard it. There was a crude wooden stairway leading from the clearing up the cliff face to the entrance, and the sentry was at the top of it, looking down. Tricky. Very tricky indeed. It would take even a man as skilled and cold-blooded as Roantis an hour. And that we did not have.

  I sank back into cover and kept moving. Before I'd gone six feet, an arm caught me around the face, a huge hand covering my mouth and nose.

  I dropped the rifle and knew that in less than a second I would feel the white-hot wall of agony when the dagger plunged into me. Either my right kidney—death in thirty seconds, and the most painful stab wound possible; or my subclavian artery, between neck and shoulder—death in three seconds; or perhaps below my rib cage and up into my heart—death in three seconds, unconsciousness immediately.

  Instinctively, I made a hitchhiker's thumb with my right hand and shot it backward. I felt the wet syrup of an eye. The hold on me relaxed, and I heard a deep grunt of pain. Without stopping, I stood up and sent my right elbow back with everything I had, then turned and kicked. The man faded back and sat down, holding his eye with one hand, his groin in the other, and cussing in a hoarse whisper. I heard reference to an intimate relationship between me and my mother.

  "Mike?" I whispered.

  "Who the fuck you think it is, jiveass?" he growled under his breath.

  “Sorry."

  "Man! You sposa be up —"

  I apologized and explained. Where was Roantis?

  Summers swept his arm out toward the clearing on the other side of the brush. "Out there. Freddie's up ahead. Better let 'im know you're comin'."

  I left him clutching himself and crawled on. I decided to flash my watch three times instead of waiting to get grabbed again. It worked; I saw an answering flash through the brush, and Freddie Kaunitz scooted over to me.

  "Que pasa?" he whispered.

  "Where's Liatis?"

  He told me, and I took up my glasses and swept the clearing. Kaunitz swore he was out there, but I'd be damned if I could see him. I now noticed a block and tackle rig above the cave entrance, much like a bale lifter on a barn. That's how they got the heavy supplies up there. But they obviously did not use the main entrance at night, which explained why the nighttime leaker had taken the back way out. Were there any other side passages? How could we know? Where was Roantis?

  The clock was ticking.

  Then I saw him. Even through the glasses I had to focus on the distant figure for several seconds before I was convinced it was a human being. Roantis had snaked his way up to the
cliff on the far side of the clearing. He was standing against the rock, but was all but invisible because he had distorted his human silhouette by assuming a crooked-leg, splayed-arm stance that resembled a gnarled Monterey cypress. It was weird, but it worked. I found out later that this was inpo, the Ninjitsu art of hiding. More specifically, it was the part of inpo known as pu neng mu, "hiding behind nothing." Since the human eye discerns movement first, silhouette second, and color third, Roantis had, in the dim light, negated all of these by his dark, swirled clothes, his deformed silhouette, and his extremely slow motion. He moved but appeared not to; he moved the way a flower petal opens. Soon he was within seven feet of the platform car that sat silent on the old spur, the old tractor cowling and stack jutting up into the purple-blue of the night like a frozen monster. Roantis stand-danced his way over to it, before the very eyes of the sentry above, and soon stood on it, right next to the engine. Then, with a languid movement, he drew a long, pale object from the front of his shirt. He dropped to a half crouch behind the tractor and affixed something to it. What was he doing? As he rose slightly and peered over the top of the engine cowling, I recognized the paper wand Sparkles MacAllister had given to him. Roantis rose to his full height and for an instant seemed to hover over the machine, then he held the wand over the smoke-stack, the dark tip of the fuse on its lower end. Then it was gone, and the dark figure pirouetted slowly off the platform and eased his way, crouching, back toward the cliff. He never saw me and wasn't coming back. My watch said we had twelve minutes left. I didn't hang around. On my way back, I told Kaunitz I was going in the back way again.

  "We're out of time, Freddie. If he comes back your way, tell him I'll meet you up there. I counted eight men inside. They look like kids."

  Then I skedaddled. I didn't see Summers on the way back or any sign of Tommy Desmond, either. I assumed they were somewhere in the brush, ready for whatever came down. I worked my way through the thickets again, then went back inside that narrow seep. I did not want to go back in there. Every cell in my body said no. My common sense—what little there is of it—said no. But something stronger said yes. I didn't know, then, what the voice was.

  So I dragged my aching body through that damp crack in the cliff again. I was carrying only my Colt rifle; even that was a chore. I squirmed through and worked any way back to the big, bowl-shaped room again. Was it my imagination, or was it lighter in there? Regardless, predawn light wasn't far off. I knew I couldn't crawl over to Daisy with the rifle, so I leaned it in a crack, took the safety snap off my pistol holster, and got down on the damp rock, belly-crawling toward where Daisy lay on her cot. I was shivering. None of the men was close to Daisy, but I knew that at least two of them—Royce and Jusuelo—were trained to wake instantly at the slightest disturbance. I inched onward, staring out the mouth of the cavern. It looked black out there, just because it was slightly darker there than inside. And just out of sight, over the rock lip of the cave's mouth, was the crude front stairway, guarded by the sentry who was probably less than fifteen feet from me. When I finally reached her, I took a deep breath and slowly placed my hand over her mouth, ready to grip it tight as iron if she began to cry out.

  But old Daisy was a pro. She opened those black eyes slowly, as calmly as a typist awakening from a lie-down, and stared at me. Then she gave me a slow wink, removed my hand, and pointed toward the foot of the cot. Her left leg was shackled by a big brass padlock to a length of aircraft cable. That steel cable is lightweight and stronger than chain.

  "Who's got the key?" I said in a whisper so low I couldn't even hear it.

  "Bill," she answered.

  I pointed around us.

  "Where?"

  "There. Against the wall. Next to Jusuelo." She pointed them out. I saw Jusuelo first, recognized the face of the priest in the hospital. The murderer-priest. Royce's head was covered by his arm, but I saw the familiar big form, and in the faint light I could see that the tufts of hair that were visible were light in color. Jusuelo and Royce. The two remaining Daisy Ducks. Turned bad. Not that the other three were angels. I wanted to walk over there and put bullets in their heads. I felt a tug on my shoulder.

  "It's hanging on a ring on his belt, Doc. You'll never get it without waking him."

  But I hunkered down and began to ease along the rock toward Royce. I doubted he would wear the keyring while sleeping; it would hurt if he turned on it. Twice I had seen and heard the sleeping men stir. Outdoor people like these rise early. Time was just about up. It was now or never, and all up to me. "Observatory position," my ass.

  I crept over the rock floor to Bill Royce's cot. It only took about three hours. Hell, I had loads of time left. A whole minute and a half. Loads. And there, thanks be to God, on the ground right next to the cot was the first lucky break I'd had—a ring of keys. Royce flinched, then turned over on the cot. I saw in the rising light a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip. Oh God. If he got the drug shakes he'd wake any second, and in a foul mood. Also, considering how I'd already managed to muck up his plans, he would waste no time in dealing me out.

  I snagged the keys and belly-crawled back to Daisy. I wanted to rush, but I made myself move slowly and in silence. When I got to her, Daisy took the keys. Pulling up softly on the cable, I saw the tether end was made fast to a massive screw eye—the size they used on telephone poles—set into a hole in the rock filled with concrete. No way was it going anywhere. Daisy, whose stepfather had taught her well, had memorized the key and found it fast. When the lock snapped open, I took the keys and stuffed them in my pants. Then I closed the padlock on the cable. I didn't want them to be able to shackle her like that ever again. I leaned over and told her the drill. "We'll ease out the back way, kid. There's a sentry guarding the front. He's right below us and —"

  She didn't wait to hear the rest, just eased to her feet and crept ahead of me toward the back of the cavern. Then she stopped, dropped to a crouch, and motioned me toward the front. I heard it too: somebody scuffling around in the rear passage. Somebody was coming our way, walking in through the narrow seep. Too late. We changed direction and moved fast now, the scuffling behind us growing louder. Was it running? I looked back to see a dark figure enter the room. We had to go out the front way now, and down the stairs. No other choice. What about the sentry? Could I shoot him in the chest with my pistol? Easy answer: not in a million years. But he had a rifle, maybe a submachine gun. I patted myself down, looking for any kind of weapon. I found it.

  But the sentry didn't wait; he had stood up, cocking his ear at the noise above him. His head was visible above the lip of the entrance. So was the muzzle of his weapon: a short, stubby grease gun. He hadn't seen us yet. I had the little can in my fist now, the top unscrewed.

  "Hey!" shouted a voice behind us. Loud enough to wake the dead. I turned for a millisecond to see the man standing in the rear of the cavern. He held something long and dark. My rifle. He'd found it. No time at all now. I jumped over the lip and down onto the wooden platform that was the start of the stairway down. Daisy followed me, and then we were eye to eye with the sentry, who was bringing up the submachine gun to point at our chests. That slug spitter could cut us both in half with a burst of fire. Oh Christ.

  "Halt!" he shouted. Holy Jesus. The voice of a teenager. He was just as scared as I was. And I was scared plenty. I emptied the contents of the can into my left hand, thinking, you don't know just how dangerous this game can get, kid. You‘ve been reading too many comic books.

  There was an ear-splitting ripping and tearing of the rock wall behind the boy. I saw dust and rock flying off the cliff face. One of the Ducks below us was giving the place a hosing down with a long automatic burst. The racket was deafening—and scary. So scary the kid turned around for a split second, which was all the time I needed to begin the long, underhand sweep of my left arm, with a whole can of snuff cradled on my cupped palm.

  The brown dust cloud flew around the kid's face, with a lot of it going into his eyes. Boy, di
d he scream. I knew it must have hurt like hell, and the pain would last and last. Would he ever see again? At that instant I didn't care. I saw Daisy grab the grease gun from midair as he dropped it in his agony. Without missing a beat, she raised the muzzle and bopped him a good one on the side of the head. He fell down the stairs, still screaming and trying to take his eyes out with the tips of his fingers. If he kept at it, he would succeed. We stormed right over him and down the stairs.

  But we still weren't home free. Not by a long shot. Because waiting for us at the very bottom of the walkway was Fred Kaunitz. He didn't even say hello, just held that black rifle pointed right at us. You know the one: black plastic foregrip with three vent holes, carrying handle over the receiver . . .

  And Fred Kaunitz never missed.

  26

  DAISY LOOKED CONFUSED and didn't raise her gun. I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her down toward the rocky gravel where Kaunitz stood. Not that it would do any good. I heard two quick shots from the FAL and turned to see Daisy's blown-away head.

  But she was line. And so, apparently, was I. There was a thumping and clattering behind us, and a figure in camo continued his slow, spastic somersaulting down the last steps of the walkway. He rolled one last time, tried to stand on his head, and didn't make it. He eased back into death, spread-eagled at our feet, with two neat holes in his chest, dead center. My Colt rifle, which he had picked up just before he yelled at us, was still on the stairs. I leaned to pick it up and heard Kaunitz telling Daisy to get into the trees and go to ground with me.

  "Thanks, Freddie," I said as he jumped for the stairs.

  "Don't mention it," he hissed through clenched teeth, leaping up the stairs three at a time. We scooted for the woods and almost got knocked flat by the burly form of Summers, who followed Kaunitz up. Then we were in the trees and vines and Daisy was hugging Roantis, calling him Papa. He beamed for maybe half a second, then looked up at the cave, frowning.