Morgan led the way along the shadowy corridor, past the flickering lights, beckoning for Doc to follow him. His musket remained on his shoulder, and there was a cap-and-ball pistol in his belt.
“Hurry up, Doc,” he whispered.
“I’m making the best pace I can, my dear fellow. I trust it is not too much farther.”
“Third door around the corner.”
They passed barred windows, shadowing only the blackness of the middle of the night. Doc didn’t have a chron on his wrist, but he guessed it was close to twelve.
He and Jak had discussed this escape plan, and it hadn’t seemed too difficult then. Just words.
Now the words were going to become action, and Doc was beginning to feel deeply uneasy about what he had agreed to do.
“In here, Doc.”
Carrying his ebony cane, Doc followed the sec man into a bathroom. He saw that there was only a single low-quality light overhead, a row of six stalls to the right and a single compartment with a door to the left.
“I am most grateful, Master Morgan.”
“All I can do. Like to help.” Doc went in and closed the door, making fumbling noises to indicate he was lowering his breeches. “Out of my hands. You know that the baron’ll keep the woman in his zoo, don’t you?”
“We had reached that supposition.” To try to gather himself, Doc sat down for a moment on the polished mahogany seat, wiping sweat from his forehead with his dark blue kerchief.
“Mebbe he’ll let you and the white-head kid go free.”
“Do you believe that, Master Morgan? Open your heart to me and tell the truth. We are all doomed, are we not?”
There was a long pause and he could hear the sec man’s boots shuffling on the tiled floor.
“Well, I might be wrong.”
“But.”
“But it doesn’t look good.”
“Why can’t you help us to escape? You seem a decent enough fellow.”
There was a long pause.
“Your blaster and the kid’s big.357 Magnum are both on a table at the end of the dining room. There’s guards all over the place, though.”
“Is that truly the best you can do to aid us?”
“Yeah, afraid so. I don’t want to die, Doc. Know what I mean?”
“None of us do,” the old man said, slowly and silently drawing the steel rapier from its hiding place.
“You coming out, Doc?”
“Oh, yes. I shall be out very shortly.”
JAK LAY ON THE BED with Emma. The young woman was dozing, seeming to be hardly aware of his presence.
“Doc’s gone,” he whispered.
“Who?”
“Doc. Gone.”
“Where?”
“Pretend for shit. Going try escape.”
She opened her strange golden eyes. “Doesn’t need to do that. You’ll all be safe.”
“You see that, Emma?”
“I do. Not totally sharp. But enough. Shapes and colors and things.”
He leaned over and kissed her very gently on the lips, his tumbling mane of stark white hair falling like a cascade of frost crystals across her face.
After a moment she responded, her arms going around him, holding painfully tight.
“Oh, Jak,” she said quietly. “You’re such a good person, and I did glimpse happiness with. a sort of prospect of happiness with you.”
“Can still be,” he said.
She eased him away, holding his head between her hands, staring intently into his eyes. “No, my love. There is no chance of our going on together. And you have to believe this. You have to. It’ll make it a lot easier to cope with, when it happens. And it won’t be long now.”
RYAN AND J.B. HAD MADE their way through the animal part of the baron’s collection, not bothering to check out what lay behind the other door.
The inner door had a simple handle. Ryan turned it, SIG-Sauer ready in his right hand, with J.B. and the Uzi close at his heels.
A corridor stretched ahead of them, with a long tapestry along one wall. There were three doors on the opposite side, all of them closed. The passage ended in a single oak door with a rounded top to it.
Ryan catfooted toward it, started to open it and then froze.