She opened her mouth to speak, then hurried out
“I know who you are,” said Warnow quite calmly, his face working for composure. “Does that surprise you?”
It did, but I said nothing.
Warnow sank into a massive leather chair beside the bed, crossed his legs, and folded his arms across his chest. “Do you think, Carter,” he continued with the whisp of a smile, “that I’m unprepared for an eventuality such as this? Of course not. I will never leave this room with you alive. And if I should die, half the world will crumble in ashes at almost the same moment.”
“I know all that,” I said. “I’ve decoded your secret papers and your preparations are wasted. Do the numbers 5-21-80-54-7 mean anything to you?”
His maniacal expression flickered like a candle in the wind — and went out. For a space I could almost see the gears of his mind shifting down, clashing harshly, then grinding on the alternatives.
He shrugged and fashioned a wan smile of resignation. “Well,” he said, “ultimately nothing matters. All the people, all the foolish creations of mortal men, must come to an end.”
“A noble philosophy,” I answered.
“The two of us,” he went on, “we alone in this dungeon of a room control the density of the world. Think of it. Just think of it! The unspeakable power we hold in our hands.” He paused. “We can join forces and rule the world together. Or we can destroy each other in the next few minutes. Which shall it be?”
“Neither,” I said. “Even a bad loser knows when the game is over. And accepts his losses. Now — I’ll give you thirty seconds to decide. Come with me and face trial, or die in that chair. Personally, I hope you choose to die. Because it will take more than a little doing at the risk of my neck to get you out of here.”
The spastic fingers of one hand tensely kneading the thick, padded arm of his chair, Warnow slowly nodded. “All right, I’ll come with you,” he said. He uncrossed his legs and seemed about to rise.
But suddenly he shoved against the chair arm. The top, cushioned portion of the arm instantly folded back on concealed hinges to reveal a small, lighted console. It contained a large, red button, a toggle switch and a numbered dial.
As he hit the button sharply with the heel of his palm, I shot him through the chest Even so, his other hand was already reaching for the dial. So I shot him again. The hand convulsed, drifted back toward the toggle switch. I don’t know if it was the reflective spasm of death or the last superhuman effort of a man who was just a second from eternity; but to my astonishment, the hand continued its descent, and in so doing, yanked the toggle switch.
A thin click was followed by the distant, muted sounds of alarm bells and wailing sirens. If such sounds could filter through great stone walls and about half a ton of steel door, I knew that outside in that commune of soldiers and workers, it was a screaming, clanging, ear-bursting summons for help.
I had intended to force Warnow to tell me where he kept the all-important stylus without which the pacemaker detonating signals could not be canceled But now he was dead, I didn’t have the stylus, and the last thirty seconds were ticking away toward the most devastating multiple explosions in the history of man.
Wamow’s eyes were rolling up, glazing in death when, darting a glance at the sweep hand of my watch, I bent, tore his jacket open, and ripped away his shirt in almost the same motion. And there was the stylus; suspended from his neck on a long silver chain!
His chest was bare but awash with blood. Madly, I wiped the blood from a four-inch square of skin bordered on three sides by a plastic seam. I worked my fingers under the edge and pulled the flap of skin loose — to reveal the passkey with its spiral of tiny, numbered contact points.
Holding the stylus as delicately as a brain surgeon would a scalpel, I touched the tip to the contact points, sparking the electronic combination for the DISARM signaclass="underline" Five… twenty-one… eighty… fifty-four… seven!
Now my eyes leaped at my watch. Four — three-two — one and — wham! Time for a bursting and rending of cities that never came I had made it with four seconds to spare. And it was done!
Or was it?
I peered down at the chair-arm console. Above the red button, there was the labeclass="underline" DESTRUCT. Above the toggle switch the label read: ALARM. Now I studied the numbered dial. It was labeled DESTRUCT TIME DELAY and circled by gradations marked from zero to sixty minutes. The pointer control which Warnow had obviously been trying to twist down to zero, rested on sixty.
Sixty minutes to what? A green light glowed above the red DESTRUCT button. There was no other button to cancel the time lock so I hopefully pressed the same button again. Nothing. The green light remained aglow.
I listened. Distantly, the alarm bells and sirens continued their awesome clamor. I whipped the chain and stylus over Warnow’s head, stuck the device in my pocket and loped for the door, gun in hand. I yanked the door open and was hit by the deafening sound of bells and sirens. I checked to be sure that the steel door had locked in closing so that no one could enter to discover Warnow’s body, and rushed through the guard room to the tunnel. At first I saw no one and hurried toward the door of the twins’ chamber.
As I reached it, two soldiers with rifles appeared from around a bend and took aim. I flattened myself against the chamber door as they fired, missed. I straight-armed a careful shot at the lead man. As he tumbled and went down, the other quickly retreated around the bend.
Hammering on the door, I shouted my name. Terri peered out with enormous eyes, then opened to admit me and slammed the door shut.
Both girls were dressed in unrevealing, almost severe gray suits. A pair of small, matching suitcases rested by the door.
“Forget those cases,” I said. “We’re in a tight squeeze, and you’ll be moving too fast to carry them. Are you ready, then?”
Both nodded gravely.
“Have either of you ever fired a gun?”
“My father taught me to shoot at targets with his pistol,” Terri offered
“Jerri?”
She shook her head. “I always hated guns. But if I must, I suppose I can aim and pull a trigger.”
I crossed to the sprawled body of Marcus and snatched his gun from its holster. I gave it to Terri. “Shoot to kill” I told her. “C’mon, let’s go!”
I led them cautiously into the tunnel. The alarms had now ceased, the silence was shattering. We crept sideways to the first bend of the tunnel, hugging the wall. There I bellied down and slithered forward until I could see around the curve.
Three feet away, the soldier who had retreated stood against the near wall, rifle at the ready. He saw me a split second too late and I fired at his chest My aim was high in that awkward position, and I caught him souarely in the mouth, the bullet drilling a couple of front teeth before passing through his brain.
As we passed his body, the girls paused to look down with expressions of revulsion. The soldier was carrying a sidearm. I bent to claim it and passed the weapon to Jerri. For a moment, she gazed at the gun as if it were a deadly snake. But then, with a shrug, she asked me how to use it and I showed her.
Now we dashed for the mouth of the tunnel where I checked for lurking soldiers. Finding none, we burst into daylight. We hurried along a path for a few yards, and were confronted by a pair o£. men in work clothes walking briskly toward us. They were unarmed and so I made no attempt to shoot them. They barely glanced at me. but looked curiously at the girls in passing.
And then I remembered that I, too, wore work clothes, the men had been so distracted at the sight of the girls that they had failed to take a close look at me. Perhaps there were so many working types that they were not all well-known to each other.