The youth’s jungle training had served him well. He managed to squeeze into unbelievably tight niches or cling to the ceilings of corridors as patrols jogged through in search of him. He broke into a laboratory and stole a handful of chemicals, which he mixed up and spread on the floor. The first dog handlers to lead their animals through the corridor were astonished as their charges howled and broke loose, their brown eyes tearing. Alkirin hoped the chemicals’ effect was temporary. Those dogs were highly trained. Besides, he was fond of dogs. It was one of his soft spots.
Sergi moved from place to place, picking up an item here, breaking into computers and changing settings there. He must have planned his incursion to the very last letter over the course of the years. It cost the lives of seven scientists, two computer programmers, an innocent file clerk who was in the wrong office, and a dozen lower-level guards.
Alkirin allowed the hide-and-seek to go on for five or six hours, then called for his personal body-guard. The seven men and one woman who answered the summons were the best-trained, most deadly fighters that he had ever had work for him.
“I wish to visit the financial center in the third basement,” he said.
None of their faces changed, but he knew their minds must be racing. All of them must have been thinking that there was something wrong; he must know that the invader had not yet been captured. But they did not question Alkirin. No one did. All of them drew weapons. He took his place in their midst. The first two guards scouted outside the room, then gave the signal to the others to escort Alkirin out. He allowed himself to look sedate and calm, but his mind raced, ensuring that his calculations were all correct, and all preparations were made.
Now, for the confrontation that Sergi must devoutly be praying for.
For the first time since he had been a foot soldier, Alkirin felt the frisson of physical terror crawl coldly down his back as they marched. The youth was following them. Alkirin knew Sergi had shorted out the security monitors in this section, and had looped a file showing the passage empty. The boy did not know about the secondary cameras that fed into Alkirin’s personal console and Colebridge’s computer. He did not realize his every move was still being watched.
Here. It must be here, Alkirin thought as the guards escorted him onto the private elevator. It was what he would do under similar circumstances.
He was not wrong. The elevator moved downward smoothly, then jerked to a halt. The chief escort barked orders. One guard spoke into his communications link, trying to raise the engineering department. The others pried open the doors to discover that they were nearly level with the second basement floor. The guards decorously assisted Alkirin out and up to the floor when the explosion came.
Head ringing, Alkirin found himself on the floor, covered by the bodies of four of his bodyguards. The others were dead, blown to pieces. Those remaining alive tried to cover him, but they were shot dead by the powerful hunting rifle Sergi held.
Alkirin was not unprepared. From his sleeve he flipped a flash grenade at Sergi. Shielding his eyes from the glare, he ran up the corridor.
The exploding light cast a long shadow before Alkirin. He wondered if Sergi had ducked or if he had been blinded. Ah, footsteps! The boy had protected himself.
The pain came almost at once. The doctors had warned him that his heart was growing steadily weaker. A transplant, they suggested, or perhaps a cloned graft. He had turned them all down. If only his tortured organ would hold out long enough to finish this matter correctly!
He could not stay ahead of Sergi for long. The boy overtook him swiftly. A hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him around, shoved him against a wall.
“Unhand me, boy!” Alkirin shouted. Sergi leaped back. The authority in the old man’s voice made him obey automatically. His handsome face screwed up with petulance. He was still a child in so many ways.
“You!” Sergi burst out. “You were responsible! Why? Why did you make me a prisoner on that island? Why? You tortured me! My physics tutor told me it was you that took me to that island! Why? Why?”
Alkirin remained calm. “Allow me to introduce myself.”
“I know who you are,” Sergi interrupted.
Alkirin held up an imperious forefinger. “You know who I am, but not what I am. Sergi, I am your father.”
The boy let out a snort of disbelief. Alkirin merely smiled.
“Oh, I can give you proof. Your mother could. She is a biologist, but you are also trained in the sciences. You can examine our DNA signatures. We are close flesh and blood, you and I. You are my son and heir.”
It was a lot to absorb. Sergi’s face showed the struggle to understand, to accept, but his mind refused to release the question until it was answered. “But why? Why did you do all that to me?”
“To test you. To make you the strongest man you could be.” Alkirin held up his hands in admiration. “And look at you!”
Sergi gaped for a moment, then pulled himself together. His expression became scornful. “I overcame all your tests, old man. You are not so formidable.”
“Ah, you still think you are the architect of your own rescue. Oh, no. Everything you did, I set up for you. I engineered your opportunities. True, you took them. That was the test: whether you could see and take advantage of situations. I made the pilot leave the departure point in the jet-copter’s memory. I changed the schedules so that you would know when to take advantage of the craft. I left the way in here open so you could take it, made all the rooms and safes the same as you recalled them from when you were a boy. If you had thought about it, you would have realized things do not remain frozen in time. They change. You will learn.”
Sergi could no longer conceal his astonishment. Akirin’s point was made. “Why? Why all this?”
“Because you are my heir, Sergi, but I have no intention of allowing you to live if you are unworthy. I wanted to see for myself. And now, I,” he added, allowing his eyebrows to droop sadly, “I have decided that you are not worth the trouble I have gone to.”
From the sleeve of his tunic Alkirin whipped a slender gun and fired it. Sergi saw the movement of his hand. He dropped and rolled. He was remarkably fast. The explosive charge Alkirin fired blew a huge hole in the wall behind him exactly where his head would have been. The boy sprang up. Looking alarmed, Alkirin took to his heels and ran. Slugs winged past him with a noise like angry hornets. He was running. Brubchek would be furious.
He was being steered, Alkirin realized, as he fled down the hallway. Every time he tried to duck into a side corridor, the bullets on that side would increase in number.
Alkirin, too, tried to kill his son, triggering traps that had been set in the ceiling and walls of every room of the fortress. The youth was superbly trained, and his memory of his previous visits was clear. He eluded the weapons that sprang from hidden emplacements where he had not already disabled them.
A lone soldier sprang out of the safe room he had been guarding. Fearing for the life of his master, he drew a knife and rushed at the boy, shoving him face-first into the opposite door. Sergi leaped up, wall-walked upward over the man’s head, dropped down behind him, and shot him before the guard could turn around. Alkirin took the opportunity to flee around a corner. Sergi followed. Alkirin saw his eyes light up with manic pleasure as he saw which corridor the old man had run into. He had not forgotten. He rushed for the controls.
The door slammed downward as Alkirin lunged for freedom. It snapped shut so fast it took the tip off his boot.
“Let me out of here, you brat!” Alkirin pounded furiously on the door with both fists. The steel boomed, but all his blows were in vain. “Let me out! Unlock this door!”