Without warning, he turned and sprinted back to the hangar wall and snatched up the phone headset.
Caine snarled something, but it was clear he'd been caught off-guard and his reaction would be too slow. Across the way Pittman hurled his nunchaku at Bernhard, which missed, and Colvin charged forward, scrabbling for a shuriken—
And something inside Kanai broke.
A shuriken seemed to leap of its own accord into his hand; all the frustration and shame of the past years welled up in his arm to send the black throwing star burning across the gap like an avenging angel—
And Bernhard jerked backward with a yelp as the shuriken sliced cleanly through the phone cord and ricocheted from the metal wall into the darkness.
"No," Kanai said into the sudden silence. The word was heavy on his tongue—heavy, but strangely clean. "With your actions you've forfeited the right of command. Caine is right; the others must now make their own choice as to whether or not to accept your betrayal."
Slowly, Bernhard laid down the handset and started to walk toward Kanai, his eyes alive with madness-tinged hatred. Kanai licked his lips, but stood his ground without fear. He had no doubt he would die in the coming fight, but death wasn't really that hard to face. Not for a man who'd been allowed one last chance to regain the manhood he'd thought gone forever.
"Don't try it, Bernhard."
The voice came from the shadows behind Kanai; and as Bernhard jerked and a low guttural growl escaped his lips, Kanai thought he would attack right then and there. Slowly the madness left the other's eyes, and with a deep, pain-filled breath he straightened from his fighting stance and lowered his arms to his sides.
And stood there, his face a mask, as Skyler and Hawking stepped forward into the light to take him under control. Behind them, Lathe paused beside Kanai. "Welcome back," the comsquare said, searching the other's face.
Kanai locked eyes with him. "You were waiting to see what I'd do, weren't you?" he said, anger at Lathe stirring in him again. "To see whether I'd side with him."
"As you said, each of you has the right to make his own choice," the comsquare said quietly.
Kanai took a deep breath, eyes flicking to where Bernhard's hands were being secured behind him.
Why doesn't he try to escape? he wondered... but the question wasn't hard to answer.
Even half insane with anger, Bernhard was still first and foremost a survivor.
Kanai closed his eyes briefly and turned away... and wondered why that thought should so fill him with pity.
Chapter 39
"Where will you go?" Caine asked as Skyler removed the makeshift shackles from Bernhard's wrists and stepped back to stand by the entrance to Torch's bypass tunnel.
Bernhard rubbed his wrists for a moment in silence before fixing Caine with a cold glare. "Do any of you really care?" he asked. His eyes flicked from Caine to Lathe, lingered on Kanai. The latter seemed to Caine to stiffen slightly, but he didn't shrink from Bernhard's gaze.
"We all care," Lathe said. "It's not too late even now to get back into the fight."
"Alone?" Bernhard snorted. "Dead or deserted, I've lost what's left of my team."
"You were trained to be able to fight alone," Lathe reminded him. "And there are organizations like Torch all over the world you could link up with. You're a valuable quantity, Bernhard—I'd hate to see you throw yourself away."
The other held Lathe's eyes for a long moment. "It's you, Comsquare, who's throwing himself away.
You'll never get off this planet, you know, and if Quinn doesn't get you the Security chief in the next city will. You're dead, Lathe—all of you are. Remember that, Kanai. Remember it when the Security troops are moving in on you... and remember that I kept you alive and healthy in enemy territory for thirty years."
Kanai didn't reply, and after a moment Bernhard turned to the tunnel entrance. "Before you go,"
Skyler said, holding a folded piece of paper out toward him, "you'll need this."
Bernhard frowned down at the paper. "What is it?"
"Your departure pass," the big blackcollar told him. "Mordecai's guarding the entrance, remember?
He won't let you leave alone without this."
Bernhard spat a curse in reply. "I suggest you take it," Lathe said mildly. "Mordecai's a better fighter than any of us, including you... and he takes his orders very seriously."
Bernhard snatched the paper out of Skyler's grip and, without another word, disappeared down the tunnel.
Caine took a deep breath. "I hope there's no way he can set up any booby traps on his way out."
"There won't be," Lathe assured him. He nodded, and with an answering nod Skyler slipped into the tunnel behind the departing blackcollar.
"Bernhard will spot him," Kanai murmured.
"Perhaps," Lathe said. "But he won't do anything about it. Come on, gentlemen—let's finish this project and get the hell out of here."
—
"No other conclusion?" Lathe asked, his eyes flicking between Hawking and Caine.
Caine shook his head wearily. "It's not listed on any file we can access. The code-check program Hawking wrote can't find any overlaid codes of the sort we found in the Plinry archives. There's no hard-copy data anywhere we can get to.
"The Backlash formula simply isn't here."
Lathe sighed, and for a long moment the room was silent. "Well," he said at last, "that's the way things go sometimes. The universe doesn't give any guarantees that there are even answers to the questions we ask, let alone that we can find them."
Hawking stirred. "I take it, then, that the Torch drug is not, in fact, Backlash?"
"I wish we knew," the comsquare said. "We've gone through every scrap of documentation we could find—we've got the calculated dosage amount, the formula, the manufacturing sequence, and even the estimated lifespan of the drug. But as to its purpose, not a whisper. Apparently they didn't think it necessary to mention that, as if anyone likely to find it would already know what Whiplash referred to."
"Then maybe Anne Silcox will be able to tell us something," Hawking suggested.
"Maybe," Lathe said. "Assuming she and Reger did indeed survive the attack Bernhard called down on them, which is by no means certain. I've been thinking we might do a quick test before heading back there, just to see if the stuff does anything obvious."
"No," Caine said firmly. "Absolutely not. Pittman's already suffered more than his fair share for this mission, I'm not having you risk his life with some witch's brew a group of fanatics came up with."
"Agreed," Lathe said. "But who said anything about testing the stuff on Pittman?"
Caine stared. "You mean... you?"
"Do I look crazy?" the other countered. "I'd prefer to use someone a little more expendable. Come on, let's get the gear packed up. If we hurry, we should be able to make it back to Reger's tonight."
—
The first thing Miro Marcovich noticed as he drifted toward consciousness was that somewhere his body was hurting like hell.
It took a while longer for the pain to localize into his neck, and as it did so the rest of the sensations began falling into place. He was lying on his back on a prickly surface... his left arm inexplicably bare... and there were footsteps and murmurs of conversation around him. Did I faint? he wondered, searching his mind for a clue as to what had happened. But the last thing he could remember was standing outer sentry duty in the woods surrounding Ivas Trendor's mountain home. Carefully, wary of hurting something else, he opened his eyes—
And nearly had a heart attack. Standing and milling around within his view were a half-dozen men, but not in the Security uniforms he'd expected to see. Dressed in civilian clothing, with black shirts peeking through at the open necks. And their faces—