Then he heard the quiet swish of the outer panel opening, and the intruder went away. A trembling Packer lay motionless and waited for someone to come and rescue him, praying that the killer would not return.
Time seemed to slow. Each minute dragged away painfully. Each second expanded to fill an eternity. He waited.
At last Packer decided that the danger had passed. He stood warily and crept to the couch, fumbling for the light plate near the head. The light winked on and he stared down at the neat charred holes in the couch. Green gel from the support chambers bubbled out onto the orange fabric. The pulses had been calculated to burn through him; no doubt about that: three black rings in the couch-one where his head had been, one at his heart, and one at his midsection-any one of them would have killed him.
He was still standing over the couch, acrid wisps of smoke stinging his nostrils, when he heard a voice behind him. He whirled around, ready to dive for the floor, then recognized Ramm standing there watching him.
"You look a little shook up, friend," said the Chief. "You okay?"
"Oh, it's you. Yeah, I'm all right. Someone tried to kill me." "Tried to what?" He punched in the access code and stepped through the door. "Are you joking?"
"I don't find this very funny," said Packer. He pointed down at the damaged couch.
Ramm let out a low whistle and turned to Packer apologetically. "Man, you're lucky to be alive. If you'd been asleep they would have drilled you."
"I wasn't asleep, thank God." He looked down at the three holes oozing gel from the depression of his body still outlined in the couch. He shivered. "I want out of here, Ramm. The game has changed. These guys, whoever they are, want to play rough. Next time I won't be so lucky, maybe."
Ramm raised a hand and stroked his jaw. "I don't know…"
"What do you mean you don't know? Look, this was supposed to be for my protection, remember? That's what you said. I wasn't protected very much, was I? I want out now!"
"Where will you go? Back to your quarters? To the lab? They'll be waiting for you."
Packer had not thought of that. He threw his hands out to Ramm and said, "What's going on here? This is getting crazy."
"You don't know the half of it. Come with me, we'll talk in my office."
Packer followed the security chief out of the cell block and into his private office. Ramm sat down on the edge of the desk and folded his arms across his chest. Packer sat down in one of the visitor's chairs and ran his hands through his red bush of hair.
"You want some coffee? Something to eat?"
"Thanks, maybe later." He waited for Ramm to begin.
"I found out a few things this afternoon that strike me as extremely odd. I think Kalnikov has disappeared-I can't seem to locate him anywhere. Williams is saying that due to Kalnikov's condition he was shipped out on the shuttle for medical assistance Earthside. I don't buy it. There's been one shuttle down in the past two days and no injured personnel aboard it according to the records."
"Then where is he? What's happened to him?"
"I don't know. I think he's still aboard here somewhere. They could have stashed him anywhere."
Packer got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He seemed to be riding a swift elevator down.
"Trouble is, it would take me a couple hundred man-hours to find him, and then the search would alert whoever it is that has him to move him somewhere else."
"What about the guy who tried to kill me a few minutes ago?"
"It's between shifts. My second-shift crew hasn't signed on yet. No one saw anything, I'm afraid."
"What kind of place do you run here?" Packer was quickly losing his temper. He had been cooped up in his cell for a day and a night and no one was on duty when the assassins struck.
Ramm dismissed his anger with a swipe of his hand. "I don't blame you for getting steamed. But you have to remember, we're not a police force-I mean, in a way we are, but this isn't a high. crime area. It isn't like a real city. Mostly we just make sure that people stay out of construction areas and watch the locks on the restaurant pantries after hours, that sort of thing.
"We weren't expecting a strike. You've got to consider that a place like Gotham isn't exactly equipped to handle an armed insurrection. It isn't in the blueprints. Nobody planned on that ever happening."
"Well," grumbled Packer, "maybe it's time that somebody started planning for it-if it isn't already too late."
10
… THE CAMP OF THE bandits looked less like a camp and more like a gypsy village than anything Spence had ever seen. Tents of scrap cloth and tarp sewn together, draped over branches or supported with poles scavenged in the jungle, gave the place a wild, fanciful appearance. Small children scampered half -naked to see the odd-looking visitors. Old men sat around the ashes of the previous night's fire nodding and pointing and clacking toothless gums as the raiding party returned with the booty. Women came running to see what their men had brought home for them. Over all an air of whimsical gaiety prevailed.
It was hard for Spence to imagine that these peaceful, happy people made their living killing the unlucky and robbing the unwary. He had expected the outlaw's hideaway to be a snake pit, dark and hateful, full of desperate men whose way of life made them vicious and unruly.
That these thieves had families that ran laughing to meet them amused him.
"Quite a picture," Spence whispered to Adjani as they moved down a wide avenue between tents and shelters made from empty cargo crates. Children ran along beside them giggling and pointing in the manner of excited children everywhere.
"Don't let it fool you, Spencer." Adjani spoke softly and peered with narrowed eyes at the leader of the bandits walking just ahead of them. "The cheerful highwayman is the more dangerous. Believe me, these men will not hesitate to disembowel us in front of their wives and children if it pleases them."
Spence thought Adjani was being melodramatic about their situation. But Gita, whose tongue had not stirred the whole of the trek into the jungle, rolled his eyes and quivered, saying, "Adjani knows of what he speaks, Spence Reston. Listen to him. These men are cutthroats for all their easy ways."
"But you can't think they'd harm us now. We have nothing of value."
"Don't you see? They have lived too long above the law; they have become secure, fearing nothing. Such men do not shrink from the worst deeds imaginable."
Gita nodded his agreement readily, so Spence said no more about it. Still, he found himself smiling at the children and gawking around the camp as if he were a tourist on holiday.
They had marched all night and rested only a few hours before striking off again. Now the sun stood high in the sky, filtering down through the leafy green canopy above. The prisoners were paraded through the camp and brought to the biggest tent and made to sit down under a large patchwork awning between two guards while the bandits proceeded to divide up the night's harvest of merchandise piled in the center of the settlement.
The shouting of the men and shrieking of the women was still in full chorus when the leader disengaged himself from the swarm around the goods and came to stand before them. The guards prodded the prisoners to their feet with their rifle muzzles.
The bandit leader, a huge hulk of a man with a spreading belly concealed beneath his flowing kaftan, eyed them with interest, and then spoke rapidly to Gita. Gita touched his forehead and bowed low. The leader pushed through them and went into his tent.
"His name is Watti and he wants us to follow him," explained Gita.
"After you," said Spence, and the three went into the leader's dwelling.