“Take a left,” Bonnie mentioned.
“Are your arms gettin’ tired?” Hickok inquired.
Bonnie glanced at the gunman and smiled. “No. But thanks. I can carry her for a mile yet.”
They started to round the corner.
“You won’t need to carry the child that far, my dear,” stated someone arrogantly. “We wouldn’t want you to strain yourself.”
“You!” Bonnie exclaimed in horror.
A lone figure stood in the center of the street 20 feet away, his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a black uniform glittering with gold medals. His hair, mustache, and beard were all black. “Yes, vixen. It is I.”
He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers. “But I didn’t come alone.”
Dozens of Hounds materialized, training their weapons on the Warriors and the woman. They were stationed on the rooftops and positioned at upper-story windows. They poured from doorways, forming two rows across the street behind the man with the medals. A pair of jeeps roared from an alley farther down and raced almost to the two rows before braking. A Hound stood in the rear of each vehicle, manning a swivel-mounted machine gun.
“Have you missed me, Bonnie?” the man said with a sneer.
Bonnie uttered a plaintive groan. “We’re dead!”
Chapter Eighteen
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi glided up the stairs with pantherish finesse, reaching the landing door without making a sound, his katana in his right hand. A muted hubbub arose on the far side as he took hold of the doorknob, and he cautiously eased the door open a crack to hear better.
“—every guard except Pierce, Brosnan, and us out front.”
“What’s going on?”
“I heard he’s really pissed off. Something about a platoon being attacked.”
“The platoon the general took out this morning?”
“No. Another platoon.”
“Two platoons in one day? You’re kidding.”
“Hey, I only know what I was told, and I th…”
The voices tapered off as the speakers hurried out of range.
What was this? Were the guards assembling at the front of the mansion? If so, why? And if they were, this might be the opportunity he needed. Rikki widened the opening until he could slip through, pausing in the corridor to orient himself. If he remembered correctly, going to the right would take him in the general direction of the stairs to the second floor and the throne room. He padded stealthily to another hall, taking the right-hand fork, his ears primed to catch the faintest sound.
The next corridor was reached uneventfully.
Where were all the guards? Outside?
Rikki took a left, and he was 20 feet into the hallway when a scarcely audible conversation wafted from up ahead, growing louder with each second.
Hounds!
He spotted a door to his left and raced over. A quick check insured it wasn’t locked, and he was inside, his left ear pressed to the panel, in an instant. He found himself in a storage closet filled with mops, brooms, and cleaning supplies. The light came through a narrow window high on the rear wall.
“—want to be in the general’s shoes when the King gets back.”
“He ordered me to haul my ass down to the holding cells and find out what’s keeping General Thayer. He sounded mad as hell. He said something about showing the general how to do his job. And then he took off with the estate guards and two truckloads from the Complex. Also had a couple of jeeps. Looked like he was ready to start a war.”
“Did you hear the scuttlebutt about two platoons being wasted?”
“Yeah. And I don’t believe it for a minute.”
“You don’t?”
“Give me a break. Who could wipe out two platoons?”
“The Leather Knights.”
“Those suck-egg pansies can’t beat their meat without help. They couldn’t take on two of our platoons.”
Rikki gauged the two men to be several yards past the storage closet door. He opened it, confirming his guess, and stepped into the corridor.
The duo might stumble on him later if he spared them. He wanted them out of the way so he could achieve his goal unhindered. Each had an AR-15 slung over a shoulder, but neither were wearing sidearms.
“Excuse me,” Rikki said.
The Hounds stopped and glanced back, surprise twisting their features.
“You!” the one on the left exclaimed.
“Would you care to surrender?” Rikki asked.
In response, the guards tried to bring their Ar-15’s into play. They were pathetically slow.
To the Warrior, whose speed was uncanny and whose reflexes were honed to seemingly superhuman levels, the pair of Hounds moved with all the quickness of solidified lava. He was on them before either could completely unsling his rifle, his katana flashing, cleaving the forehead of the guard on the right, then slicing the neck of the other Hound.
They died horribly, whining and gurgling and convulsing on the floor, geysers of blood spattering onto the floor and the walls, both terrified at the prospect of slipping into eternity, and both doing so with a hideous death mask as the legacy to their passing.
Rikki jogged to the end of the hall, took a right, and in 30 seconds was standing in the broad central hallway. He dashed to the stairs and went up them three at a time. A sharp right, and he was running toward the throne room. He doubted the King would permit anyone to be in the throne room when the royal personage was absent, so he took a calculated gamble by throwing the door open when he arrived and springing inside.
The throne room was empty.
He crossed quickly to the rear door in the right-hand wall, hesitating before turning the knob, mentally girding himself. If his suspicion was correct, entering the Dark Lord’s chamber was the key to unraveling the mystery of Aloysius the First’s sway over the people of Memphis. If he was wrong, he’d be up against a mutant endowed with incalculable power.
There was only one way to find out.
Rikki took a deep breath, twisted the doorknob, and shoved. The door swept inward to reveal an inky chamber. He advanced several strides, the katana held in the jodan-no-kamae position, tensed to counter any attack.
He waited for the blazing red orbs and the radiant globes to appear, but nothing materialized.
Was his deduction accurate or was the Dark Lord off somewhere?
He backed to the wall and felt its smooth surface with his left hand, running his palm from waist height to as high as his shoulder and down again, moving away from the doorway. He went eight feet and found what he wanted.
A light switch.
Rikki faced the chamber and flicked the switch.
A series of overhead fluorescent bulbs illuminated the entire, large chamber, casting the Dark Lord’s abode in a pale, yellowish glow. The floor was composed of green tiles. Pale white squares of an unknown substance coated the walls and the ceiling. Dominating the room was a wide stage situated along the rear wall, and resting on the stage was the Dark Lord.
Rikki walked forward, marveling at the sight in front of him.
Positioned at both ends of the stage were enormous rectangular boxlike affairs, easily six feet tall, consisting of wooden side panels and a black plastic grill. Complicated electronic equipment flanked the gigantic boxes.
Between each box and the center of the stage was a tall metal pedestal supporting a glass sphere. Inside both spheres was a tapered gray needle.
And filling the center of the stage, near the front, dangled a peculiar glass or plastic panel suspended from the roof by silver chains. Underneath the panel was a console, its back to the room, with a microphone on the top.
What did it all mean?