"You've got to get me out of here? Are you crazy…"
"Hans and Sammy plan to kill all you girls after this meeting. You want to die?"
"You're mad. Help!"
"All except Ruth. Akito fixed that. And Pong-Pong. Hans fixed that."
She grabbed her filmy bra from a chair, whipped it around her. What he had said had tricked the woman in her. Given a few minutes to think, she'd know he was lying. Something harder than a foot hit the door. He drew Wilhelmina with one practiced whip of his wrist and put a shot at twelve o'clock high through the exquisite paneling. The noise stopped.
Jeanyee slid on her high heels, stared at the Luger. Her expression was a mixture of fright and astonishment as she looked at the gun. "That is the kind — that we saw at Baumann's…"
"Of course," Nick snapped. "Get over beside the window."
But his senses leaped. The first clean-cut lead I This gang, the girls and definitely, somehow, Baumann! With a flick of a finger he turned on his tiny recorder.
As he opened the window and slid the aluminum screen from its spring clips he said, "Baumann sent me to get you out. We'll save the others later if we can. We've got a small army at the entrance to this place."
"It's a mess," Jeanyee wailed. "I don't understand…"
"Baumann will explain," Nick said loudly, and flicked off the recorder. Sometimes the tapes survived when you didn't.
He looked out into the night. This was the east side, It had had a guard at the door, but he had apparently been sucked in by the turmoil. They hadn't practiced tactics for an internal upstairs raid. They'd think of the window in a minute.
In the glow of the light from the lower floor windows, the smooth lawn was empty. He turned and held out his two hands to Jeanyee. "Grip." It was a long way to the ground.
"What?"
"Take hold. As you do for work on the bar. Remember?"
"Of course I remember, but…" She paused, looking at the plump, elderly, but so strangely athletic man who bent in front of the window offering her his hands, twisted for an aerialist's lock-and-hold. He had even pulled up his sleeves and cuffs. The tiny detail convinced her. She grasped the hands and gasped — they were leather-over-steel, as powerful as those of any professional. "Are you really…"
She forgot the question as she was pulled headfirst through the window, imagined herself hurtling to the ground to break her neck, and tried to curl for a rolling fall. She tucked slightly but it was unnecessary. Strong hands guided her in a tight forward somersault and then twisted her sideways as she swung back toward the building's side. Instead of crashing against the white-painted shiplap she thudded on it lightly with her hip, held by the strange, powerful man who now hung above her, gripping the sill with his knees.
"It's a short drop," he said, his face a weird blob, with features reversed, in the blackness above her. "Bend your knees. Ready — oopsy-daisy."
She landed half in, half out of a hydrangea, scratching her leg but bouncing on her strong legs without effort. Her high-heel shoes were far gone into the night, lost during her outward spin.
She looked around with the helpless, panicky air of a rabbit flushed from a brush patch into open ground where hounds were baying, and started to run.
Nick made a crab-like mount up the side of the building as soon as he released her, gripped the ledge and hung for a moment until the girl was away from the area underneath him, then twisted sideways to miss the hydrangea and landed as lightly as a skydiver with a thirty-four-foot chute. He tumbled to break the fall, and rolled right-side-up running after Jeanyee.
How that girl can go! He caught just a glimpse of her disappearing into the meadow beyond the range of the lights. He sprinted after her and ran straight out into the blackness, reasoning that in her panic she might not turn and cut sideways for at least a few dozen yards. Nick could cover any distance up to the half-mile in times which would be respectable at the average college track meet. He did not know that Jeanyee Ahling, in addition to family acrobatics, was once the fastest girl in Blaghoveshchenski. They ran distances, and she helped whip every team from Harbin to the Amur River.
Nick stopped short. He heard feet pounding far ahead. He ran on. She was going straight for the high wire fence. If she hit it at full speed she'd knock herself cold, if not worse. He mentally computed the distance to the edge of the valley, estimated his time and strides covered, guessed how far ahead of him she was. Then he counted twenty-eight strides, stopped, and cupping his hands to his mouth called, "Jeanyee! Stop, Danger. Stop. Look out."
He listened. The pound of feet had ceased. He trotted forward, heard or sensed a movement across his front toward the right and angled his course to match. A moment later he heard her move.
"Don't run," he said softly. "You were heading right for the fence. It may be electrified. Anyway you'll hurt yourself."
He found her in the night and took her in his arms. She was not crying, just shaking. She felt as delectable and smelled as delicious as she had in Washington — more so, perhaps, with the heat of her excitement and perspiration wet against his cheek.
"Easy, now," he soothed. "Get your breath."
She would need it. The house was in an uproar. Men ran along the side, pointed up at the window, searched the bushes. Lights went on at the garage building and several men came out, half-dressed and carrying long objects which Nick decided were not shovels. A car raced up the road and disgorged four men and the lights of another hurtled toward them from beside the main house. Dogs barked. Through a patch of light he saw a guard with a dog join the men under the window.
He considered the fence. It had not looked electrified, just high and barbed-wire topped — the best industrial plant fencing. The three gates in the valley were too far away, led nowhere and would soon be watched. He looked back. The men were organizing — and quite well. A car went down to man the gates. Four patrols spread out. The one with the dog headed straight toward them, his nose on their trail.
Swiftly Nick dug at the base of a steel fence post and planted the three plaques of explosive that looked like black plugs of chewing tobacco. He added two more power-bombs that looked like fat ballpoint pens, and the eyeglass case filled with Stuart's special blend of nitroglycerine and kieselguhr. It was his stock of explosives, but with no way to contain the force it might take it all to rend the wire. He set a miniature thirty-second fuse and dragged Jeanyee away, counting as they went.
"Twenty-two," he said. He pulled Jeanyee to the ground with him. "Lie flat. Flat! Put your face in the ground."
He faced them toward the charges to present as small surfaces as possible. The wire might fly like grenade splinters. He had not used his two grenades, built Like cigarette lighters, because their charges weren't worth risking their shower of razor-sharp metal. The patrol with the dog was only a hundred yards away. What was wrong with…
WHAMO-O-O-O!
Old reliable Stuart. "Come on." He dragged Jeanyee toward the explosion point, explored the ragged hole in the blackness. You could drive a Volkswagen through it. If the girl's logic started to work about now and she refused to move he would have had it.
"Are you all right?" he asked sympathetically, squeezing her shoulder.
"I… I guess so."
"Come on." They ran toward where he estimated the trail over the mountain might be. After covering a hundred yards he said, "Stop."
He looked back. Flashlights probed at the hole in the wire. The dog bayed. More dogs answered — they were leading them in from somewhere. They must have several breeds. A car raced across the lawn, its lights stopping when the torn wire was in their glare. Men tumbled out.