Garth, Insolers, and I moved to protect Harper and Jan, while Veil sprinted toward the narrow stairwell leading up to the balcony. It was a pointless exercise. Six Japanese men wearing expressionless faces and black turtleneck sweaters under steel-gray jumpsuits suddenly emerged from the shadows between the deep bookcases set along the walls around the balcony. Four of the men carried automatic rifles, while the other two held small grenade launchers. One of these fired a grenade at Veil's feet, while the other lobbed a grenade into the center of the sitting area where the rest of us were standing. The grenades exploded with a sound like champagne corks popping, and we were instantly surrounded by a pinkish-yellow mist that had the unlikely smell of sour pickles. There was no time, no place, to run, and Harper and I just managed to find each other in the sour-pickle fog and embrace before the thick mist entered our lungs, and the pinkish yellow around us faded to black.
Chapter Eleven
I'd been drugged with various and sundry concoctions on more than a few occasions in my life, but I'd never experienced a sensation quite like what I felt upon regaining consciousness. I was sitting, if sitting was the word, about where I'd been before our Japanese guests had arrived on the scene. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I was propped up, my head leaning back against the sofa, my hands resting limp on either side of me. I could move my eyes, head, and mouth, but that was all. I had no sensation whatsoever in the rest of my body. I would have suspected succinylcholine, or perhaps a curare cocktail, but those powerful drugs would have paralyzed my entire nervous system, and I was having no difficulty breathing. Whatever they had juiced me up with seemed to work only on the large, smooth muscles of the body, and I was most impressed with the effects of the drug. I could tell by the way the others were placed on the sofa that they, too, had been drugged. Harper was next to me, but her head had slid over onto my right shoulder. Jan was seated in the curve of the sofa, and Garth, Veil, and Insolers were directly opposite us.
The young man out of uniform in the Harvard sweatshirt was standing at the open end of the sofa, next to the glass coffee table, a few feet to my left. Five of the six other men were standing behind him in a semicircle, holding their weapons at their sides. The young man still had a supercilious grin on his face, and it occurred to me that he might suffer from some nervous disorder. However, the faces of the other men were totally impassive. The most startling feature of all the men was their eyes; I had never seen eyes like them, at least not in humans. There seemed to be no life in them; they were an almost uniform matte black, like the button eyes of dolls, as if something in the men, perhaps their very humanity, had been extinguished.
"You must be a Black Flamelet," I said, rolling my eyes in the direction of the young man in the sweatshirt, confirming to myself that I could speak without great difficulty, even if my words were slightly slurred.
The man's laugh was a giggle, a grating, effeminate sound that didn't reflect at all in his eyes. I decided his disorder wasn't in his nervous system. "That's remarkable," he said in perfect English laced with a strong Boston accent. "Really quite remarkable. How do you know that, Dr. Frederickson? Where did you hear the words 'Black Flame'?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Yes, I would," he replied casually. "And I will know."
"Who are you?"
He giggled again. "You can call me Bobby, or you can call me Zimmy, but I prefer that you call me Al."
"Whatever you say, Al. Typical Japanese name?"
"What have you done with my staff?" Jan asked in a hoarse, harrowed whisper.
"We've discharged them," the young man said, punctuating the words with a high-pitched bray even more grating than his giggle. "They've all been fired."
"God," Jan murmured, closing her eyes as tears came and rolled down her cheeks. "Oh, my God."
I said, "I don't want to give you any ideas, Al, m'lad, but why haven't you discharged us?"
This time the leader in the sweatshirt merely favored us with a supercilious grin, revealing even, white teeth. "You are all, in one way or another, involved in this matter. You are not innocents. What value is there in simply killing non-innocents?"
"Meaning you have some other use for us."
The smile, which like his laughter had never touched his soulless eyes, abruptly vanished. "You are all bound to each other, or to John Sinclair, by ties of love, friendship, brotherhood, loyalty, trust. It will be my pleasure to destroy those bonds before I destroy you. Before you die, your hearts will be broken, and you will watch as I take John Sinclair's soul from him." He paused, looked at Insolers. "You, perhaps, will be an exception. I sense that you've contributed a good deal of evil to the world, although you're a rank amateur. You could be of use to us in the long term."
"I wouldn't count on it, Al," Insolers replied in a flat tone.
In a most curious gesture, Al slowly raised his right index finger to point at the ceiling, then just as slowly lowered it until it was touching the center of Insolers' forehead. "You are a brave man, and you defy me now even though you are afraid-or think you are afraid. You have no idea what real terror feels like. Whether or not we decide to send you back to your keepers for our future use, be assured that I will teach what real fear is all about." He paused, brought his index finger around until it was pointed at me. "Where did you hear about Black Flame? Who told you about us?"
"I can't remember."
He quickly stepped forward, reached over my shoulder, and put the fingers of his right hand behind my head, tightly gripping the base of my skull. Because of the paralyzing drug in me, I felt his fingers only as a dull pressure. But then I had the sensation that his fingers were slicing through flesh and digging into bone, threatening to lift off the top of my skull. Suddenly, the inside of my body seemed to ignite in fire. My spine, from one end to the other, felt like a white-hot poker somebody had skewered me with, and the intense heat spread like a flash fire through my stomach, then seared its way down into my genitals. I screamed, and he let go.
"Ouch, that really does smart, doesn't it?" Al said as he removed his hand from my neck and put it on Harper's. "Now, would you care to answer my question, or shall I caress the lady's neck the way I did yours?"
"Somebody mentioned it to me. For Christ's sake, it doesn't matter. You don't have to hurt her. You've made your point."
"What is the name of this 'somebody'?"
"I told him," Veil said evenly.
Al turned to Veil. "And where did you hear of us?"
"I'm not sure. It must have been twenty years ago. I just heard some story about you. I didn't believe it at the time, but when Frederickson there told me about the mark on the back of your gunman at the hotel, I repeated the story to him. Now, leave them alone."
"Leave them alone, indeed," Al said, then turned and snapped his fingers in the direction of a doorway to his left that seemed to lead to a small pantry.
The missing sixth jumpsuited Japanese came through the doorway. He was holding a tray on which sat six steaming cups. This mysterious culinary sight did not exactly fill me with ecstasy; I doubted very much that the man called Al was going to allow us a coffee break.
"There are many things I wish to know," Al said, idly patting the Harvard logo on his sweatshirt. "Although I thoroughly enjoy hurting you, in the interests of saving time I think I will give you something that will help you to tell the truth."