The shadow stepped into the light, and Peter recognized the Navy Seal from the Casa del Frances. “Got your pocketknife, Doe?”
Peter froze. He flicked a glance at Russell’s blade, terrified that it might already be bloodied. Thank God for the others at least: the knife gleamed clean as a mirror. “Well, Doe?”
“Don’t have it,” said Peter, backing toward the doorway. “You’re gonna wish you did,” said Russell, advancing. Peter’s head spun in dyslexic terror. Instead of reaching for the Combat Folder in his right pocket, he reached for the canister of mace in his left. As Russell lunged toward him, Peter let him have it full in the eyes. Russell reeled away, howling an oath, then started slashing blindly after him, snorting and wheezing and swearing and knocking over everything in his way. Peter heard the women-they came running back from the hall yelling his name as Russell fell headlong over a chair and went down on his face. Peter jumped on the man’s wrist with both heels, hearing the wrist splinter, then kicked the knife hard. It spun away and he went for it, fast enough to avoid Russell’s agonized fury and quietly enough to leave the man not knowing where he was now. “Get out!” Peter shouted at Elizabeth and Beatrice. He ducked to a new position, threw the knife into the living room for Beatrice and Elizabeth to have some kind of weapon, then slammed the bedroom door shut. He turned just in time to take Russell’s charge. Acting on full automatic now as Hans Brinkman, Peter twisted away, driving a fist into Russell’s solar plexus, sidestepping a second charge and clubbing him with a right that sent Russell crashing to the floor. He stood staring at his fallen opponent as though waiting for some referee to count him out. Peter realized Hans had always fought by the rules. He was on his own here. His head whirled as he felt warm blood drip from his ear and down his neck. He staggered back, sneezing blood from his nose. Then his vision went red. He realized he was hemorrhaging somewhere inside his brain. Peter tried to keep his feet under him, even as he saw Russell stir, wheezing like a wounded beast. Fumbling into his cuff with his left hand, the Navy Seal came up with a semiautomatic pistol. Peter’s instincts told him to kick him hard anywhere, but a tide of darkness washed over Peter’s eyes and he couldn’t move. There was a loud clanging and he thought it might be the devil’s gong ushering him into hell. But when he forced his eyelids open, he was still in the bedroom, Russell was motionless on the floor like a sledge-hammered bull, and Beatrice was standing over him with an iron skillet in her hand, breathing in and out in small astonished gasps. “The pistol,” Peter groaned, sinking to the floor and slumping against the wall. Beatrice picked up the semiautomatic gingerly. “I’ll take it. See to Peter!” shouted Elizabeth, snatching up the gun. “I know how to use it!” She made sure that a round was in the chamber and clicked the gun off safety, leveling it at Russell’s bleeding head. Beatrice threw down the skillet and knelt by Peter, peering into his eyes. “I’m okay. It’s stopped. It’s exertion that brings it on,” he said, surprised at his own calmness. He glanced over at Russell, lying facedown in the doorway. “Is he dead?” “No. I can see his carotid moving.”
“You think you can bring him around?”
“Why?”
“He probably came in with Wolfe, so he knows how Wolfe is getting back to Vieques. Wolfe’s got Kenner, no doubt about that.” “On the Learjet?” said Beatrice.
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Peter. “Which New York airport do they fly out of?” “I haven’t the faintest-Peter, take it easy.” He waved her away, attempting to rise, hut falling instead. Beatrice touched his face and whispered to him. “You rest, Peter. Let us girls have a go. He watched, blood thumping in his temples, as Beatrice and Elizabeth dragged Russell across the shag rug into the bathroom. “Ignore any racket,” said Beatrice, closing the door behind her. Peter heard the bolt shoot home, then he heard water splashing: they were reviving Russell, Peter thought, as he tried again to get up but only managed to fall back at an even worse angle. He heard Russell’s muffled grunts as he came around; he heard angry female voices. There was a moment’s silence and then a string of curses from Russell. Next came a scream of agony, followed by a flurry of whimpered pleas for them to stop. Then there was a silence again.
The bathroom door opened. Russell was on his feet, yanking up his pants with trembling hands. Elizabeth had the gun aimed at his head and Beatrice was refolding a straight razor and returning it to the edge of the sink. “Where’s the plane?” asked Peter.
“La Guardia,” said Beatrice. “Hangar 17 in the General Aviation sector.” “Type?”
“It’s a C-20. Twin turbojet,” Elizabeth said. “Gray. NX-12 registration numbers on the vertical stabilizer. No other markings.” “Thank you,” Peter said to Russell. “That’s a very complete description.” “Fuck you,” said Russell, and he charged Peter like an enraged bull, sending him sprawling. Almost at the same instant, Peter heard a sharp crack, and then Russell fell headlong on top of him. Peter tried to twist away, but his energy was drained and he was pinned beneath the man. Fortunately, Russell wasn’t moving.
Elizabeth came over and put the smoking gun in the man’s ear and gave it a shove. Russell rolled off Peter and onto the floor, blood pooling under his head. There was a ragged exit wound in his forehead and brain matter was on Peter’s sleeve. “Jesus,” Peter said wearily, his capacity for astonishment gone with his returning strength. Elizabeth was staring at the gun as though it had just materialized in her hand. “You can give that to me,” he said. She handed it over, looking around at the surrounding wreckage. “Somebody must have heard all this,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s New York,” said Beatrice. “People are used to it.” “You’ve got a point,” Peter said.
Even by the time they had left Kenner’s apartment-Peter in a fresh shirt and Russell’s pistol in his pocket-not a single soul had knocked on the door to ask what was going on. No one had even come into the hallway. Indeed, this was New York. They closed the door behind them, straightened their clothes and went downstairs to hail a cab. This time, nobody had to talk Elizabeth into anything. She was with them now for the duration.
Between Manhattan and La Guardia, an incident took place in the shiny black Town Car. Clone Nine, thirty-three-year-old physics professor Phillip C. Kenner, had made a desperate bid to get free from his captors. He assumed he was being driven out to be killed anyway, since he owed over $20,000 to his bookie and was unable to pay anything back, despite grim warnings about the Mafia not taking this sort of thing lightly. Between his ex-wife dunning him for every remaining cent he had and the money he had lost investing in Siberian oil stocks, he was flat broke. To complicate matters, he hadn’t made tenure and one of his students, a precocious sophomore named Stacy, was threatening to go to the dean if he didn’t marry her and legitimize the child she was carrying. He had very little to lose.
Besides, only one of the men in the car looked like he could handle himself, and Kenner had kicked him hard in the gut before the guy knew what hit him. The other guy must have been the oldest living member of the Mafia and had signaled his reluctance to fight by covering his speckled, bone-white face with his elbows. Kenner spilled out of the car halfway across the 59th Street Bridge, realizing he could have chosen a better place, but also reckoning that he didn’t have much choice. He took off running, and for a while he thought he was home free. Every year since 1982 he had run in the New York Marathon, usually placing in the first five hundred. Loping off at any easy pace, he didn’t hear the driver of the Town Car until the guy launched himself over the hood of a Zabar’s delivery truck and nailed him with a flying tackle. In the next instant, Henderson, still purple from the kick to his stomach, arrived in a fury, grabbing Kenner from the driver, dropping him with a kick to the groin and dragging him to the bridge’s guardrail. “You want to fly the coop?” he screamed at the terrified professor. “Let’s see just how good you can tread air!” He had the sobbing man halfway over the railing when Wolfe came running up, bright red in the face and sputtering. “Henderson, what the hell do you think you’re doing? That’s me you’re punching around!” Henderson looked from Wolfe to Wolfe’s youthful counterpart. “He fucking suckerkicked me!” “Then punch that girder over there! Whatever you do to him, I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life!” Henderson threw Kenner to the sidewalk.