Hazard (39 page)

In a single swift motion he reached up with both hands; left and right he pulled down the levers on the valves.

Hiiiss …

The two Arabs knew what vx–10 could do. The sure agonizing death of it. They quickly retreated from the room, slamming the door shut behind them.

Hazard stood up. He was right in the stream of the expelling canisters. Their invisible pressurized contents struck and flowed around him.

He'd know in a minute if he'd been right or wrong, won or lost.

Be there, baby.

It was the longest minute of his life. He waited for the symptoms. His hands were trembling. He noticed the air smelled sour, stale.

More than a minute went by.

He felt all right. He felt fine, great to be alive.

The canisters were still harmlessly hissing away when he went hand over hand up the line and out onto the roof.

Below in the lighted compound there was now plenty of activity. Arabs running about, shouting. One voice stood out from the rest, issuing crisp, angry orders. Mustafa.

Hazard climbed up to the main roof. He went across and looked over the edge. They'd discovered his ramp, were pulling it down, eliminating his only means of escape. They had him trapped, stranded on an island within an island.

He drew his Llama and went around the perimeter of the roof, looking down for any possible way. He saw the front gate to the compound, a formidable iron gate. It would be locked until dawn, as Gabil had said. Parked off to the right, well away from the wall, was a large vanlike truck. No doubt the one they'd intended to use to transport the pods. Two cars were parked directly in front of the house.

A muffled sound from the opposite edge. Hazard turned and immediately went stomach down on the roof. Two of them were climbing up the side from the balcony just below. They were about thirty feet from him, easily distinguishable in their light khaki clothes, outlined against the darker sky. Hazard, less visible, had the advantage. He aimed and squeezed. A heart shot to the one on the left. The other one managed to spray off some wild shots before Hazard put two into him.

All the lights went out.

Apparently it wasn't strategy by the Arabs because there was confusion below and guttural cursing. Hazard also heard the truck being started and put into gear. Its headlights went on as it moved swiftly across the front compound. When Hazard saw it deliberately bear down on two Arabs and send them sprawling he knew it had to be Gabil behind the steering wheel.

Full speed, the truck went around the corner of the house and down its longer side, hitting anyone who got in its way.

In the dark, Hazard crossed over the roof and swung down to the balcony. That offered access to another lower roof and another balcony, and finally he was on the roof of the servants' quarters. From there he saw Gabil jam the truck into the corner of the compound. There was the screaming of metal against concrete as he wedged the truck close up to the wall. The impact smashed out the headlights.

Hazard jumped and began running. He had about a hundred feet to go.

The Arabs were shooting in the direction of the truck. Hazard could hear their bullets plunking into its metal and ricocheting off the wall. He expected to be hit, but he reached the truck, climbed up on its hood, to its cab, to the top of its van. He pulled himself up to the top of the wall, bellied over and dropped to the outside ground.

Gabil came down hard beside him.

On the run Hazard told Gabil about the Jeep, and they headed for it. They were by no means in the clear. The Arabs were after them, coming over the wall and out the front.

Gabil led the way through the cypresses to the sandstone depression below the sheer ledge of the pyramidal plateau. A traversing path got them to that higher ground. Running full out over sandy rubble they reached the Grand Pyramid, the east base. The Jeep was stashed on the side opposite. They had to go around.

When they were part way along the north base, two cars pulled up sharply at the northwest corner. Gabil and Hazard reversed their direction, but by then the Arabs on foot were at the northeast corner.

Only one way for Gabil and Hazard to go.

Climbing the pyramid, Hazard discovered, was not nearly as easy as it looked, not a matter of merely stepping up from one level to the next. The stones were about waist high and he had to negotiate them childlike, alternately kneeing up and standing. By the time he'd clambered up twenty of the courses his shins were bruised and his knees skinned. Gabil, taller, had a somewhat easier time of it. On the twenty-fifth course he waited for Hazard to catch up.

“How many?” Hazard asked, meaning the men still after them.

“Eight, maybe nine.” Gabil had his revolver in hand.

They agreed to separate to improve their chances, go up another thirty or so courses, and then try to work their way around and down to the Jeep.

A bullet chinged off a rock a ways below. Another above. And only seconds after Hazard and Gabil resumed climbing, a barrage of bullets struck and sparked on the granite around the spot they'd just vacated. At least it meant the Arabs knew only approximately where they were, couldn't be certain because the moon was now to the south and down some and the north face of the pyramid was completely shadowed.

On the twenty-ninth course Hazard slipped, scraped his ankle at the bone so painfully it made his eyes water. Stopping a moment to rub away the hurt, he noticed movement off to his left a few courses down. One of them, but how far away? A hundred feet? Possibly double that. With the dark and only the pyramid's massive dimensions for comparison it was difficult to estimate.

He glanced to his right.

Another one. They were coming up on both sides. Out of range for the Llama. If they spotted him they could pick him off easily with their automatic rifles.

He slid up onto the next course and lay still, listening. The scuffing of their shoes on the rocks, climbing sounds. Suddenly, nothing. They'd stopped, were waiting, watching for him to make a move.

A volley of shots further up the face and then two more different cracking ones followed by a short gasping cry and a tumbling sound. Had they hit Gabil? Hazard decided no, it hadn't been the kind of sound that would come from Gabil. Anyway, now it seemed no direction offered an advantage, and there was certainly no place to hide on this organized pile of rocks.

That thought caused Hazard to visualize more objectively where he was. On the north face, close to the original entrance, he decided. Was the entrance to his left or right?

Left was his hunch. But he figured luck had already been too good to him that night. Don't press it, he advised himself, and chose right. He squirmed along, not even lifting his head, feeling his way until he came to an edge, an abrupt drop-off.

He'd found the entranceway, located about fifteen feet in from the sloped face. Long ago, in removing the outer stones, a kind of topless landing had been formed, which served as an approach to the entrance. It was about a dozen feet wide, with walls on each side created by the ascending courses.

Hazard changed his mind, decided not to use that indentation for cover. It was too vulnerable, especially from above. No matter that it was dark and concealing; once he'd committed himself to it he would be trapped. They could just spray it with bullets. Besides, hiding there was too obvious an idea. They would surely think of it.

He would make sure they did.

Slowly he went up two more courses and over a short distance. Now he was directly above the entranceway. He still had the pair of pliers in his back pocket. He took them out, held them over the edge and let them drop. They hit sharply on the stones of the entrance landing twenty-five feet below. Then he took out the Zippo lighter and waited.

He saw the two Arabs approaching, moving toward the entrance. They reached it and took positions left and right of the landing. Crouched there, they listened for another sound.

Hazard accommodated them, tossed the Zippo over the edge. Its loud clank on the stones below was like a cue for the Arabs to begin their performance. Simultaneously they stood and fired their automatic rifles from the hip in sweeping bursts, the bullets ricocheting within the hard confines of the dark entranceway.

The brief compressed sound of the silencer on the Llama was lost in all the noise. The range was only about twenty-five feet. Again Hazard went for the heart. First, the Arab on the left, then the one on the right, who was too caught up in his firing to notice the other man's death or prevent his own.

No time to count blessings. Hazard continued quickly up the north face, less cautious now. When he reached the forty-eighth course he was startled to see someone no more than ten feet from him, sitting in a slouch with legs over the edge. Just sitting there in the shadow as though relaxed, enjoying the view. Hazard thought it might be Gabil, because whoever it was had had an easy chance at him and not taken it.

“Gabil?”

No reply. The figure remained motionless. Hazard moved closer, was relieved to see it was one of the Arabs. Dead from a bullet that had gone in at the corner of the right eye.

A few courses further up, Hazard came on another dead example of Gabil's marksmanship.

The odds were improving.

It was time to work his way around. He headed for the west face but stopped momentarily when he heard shots. They sounded far away. He recognized the staccato bursts of automatic rifles punctuated with individual, sharper reports. The firing seemed to last a long while. No doubt, Gabil was in the middle of it. Hazard plugged for him and, when the firing stopped, it occurred to Hazard that the silence afterward was death, one way or the other.

He continued along that course to the corner, where he took a look around. The west face was raked bright with moonlight, and there, about a hundred feet away in clear view, was another of the Arabs. On a higher course, twenty or so above. He was headed for the north face.

Another decision for Hazard: Confront him or try to evade him? He chose the latter, thinking he might be able to do it if he timed it right.

He waited, concealed in shadow, until the Arab had reached the corner. Hazard's idea was to stay close to the vertical rock and go around at the exact moment the Arab's concentration was focused on safely managing the same thing in the opposite direction. They would, in effect, exchange places.

The moment came.

Hazard made his move.

Not quickly enough.

The Arab opened up on him, the bullets chinged close. All Hazard had succeeded in doing was to trade advantage for disadvantage. Now he was in the moonlight and his adversary had the dark. For cover, Hazard pressed full length into the inner angle of the course. The bullets chipped the edge no more than a foot above him. He couldn't stay there. His only chance was to get back to the dark side. Making things worse, he was also now headed in the wrong direction.

Keeping tight against the inner angle of the course, he used his hands to push and his toes to pull. It required all his strength to retreat inch by inch. Finally his feet felt the vertical edge of the corner, and then the edge was at his thighs, at his waist, and half of him went around and drew the rest of him around into the dark.

The Arab had been firing all the while, and was still firing sporadically at where Hazard had been. Which meant he hadn't noticed Hazard's reverse move. From the flames that spat from the muzzle of the automatic rifle, Hazard guessed the Arab was fifty to sixty feet away. Just barely within the Llama's range.

He waited until the Arab fired again and using that to gauge his target, he squeezed off two, three shots. Had he missed? Underestimated the range? He moved quickly up two more courses and squeezed off another round, another, and then he heard the Arab feel the pain and fall.

Hazard went up to him, saw he wasn't dead but doubtless would be soon. In any case, he was unconscious, out of it.

To hell with the west face, Hazard thought. He'd try the unexpected. He'd go all the way up and, according to how the situation appeared from there, choose the best way down. At the moment it seemed a good idea.

But not so good later on, after Hazard had climbed another fifty courses. He stopped, only halfway up, to catch his breath and convince himself he was doing the smart thing. His shins and knees didn't agree, but he resumed climbing. Instinctively, the farther up he went the less he felt in danger. And by the time he reached the one hundred fiftieth course he was almost taking the rocks like a regular any-day tourist.

He stopped again for a rest. It was then that it occurred to him that he had an empty clip in the Llama. Stupid. He released the empty and reached to the holster strap for his last remaining spare.

It wasn't there.

Somewhere along the way, probably during the belly-down crawling, it had worked itself loose and out.

Nothing to do about it now except curse the Pyramid. In the last hour he'd learned to hate this wonder of the world. It was punishing him.

Up he went, with his new problem of no ammunition. Now it was vital that he reach the top to determine which of the three moon-lighted faces offered a safer trip down. Keeping in mind that Gabil had said there were eight or nine Arabs at the start, the most there should be now was five—counting, possibly, Mustafa. At least one, perhaps two, would be at the base of the dark side because it was the obvious way. That left three for the other faces, one each. Unless during that lengthy volley of shots he'd heard earlier Gabil had managed to get another one or two. Maybe not, thought Hazard, maybe none, maybe Gabil had been subtracted.

On the hundred ninety-ninth course, just two from the top, Hazard paused again. He was tired, breathing hard and feeling the climb in his legs, which were rubbery and aching. He sat for five minutes, then went to the top.

It was a fairly level platform about forty feet square. Nothing of interest there, just more rocks dull and worn from exposure and the tramplings of millions of sight-seers. He went first to the east edge, looked down and saw no one. He crossed over for a look down the west face, which also appeared empty of any sign of life. That made him all the more uneasy about the south face. He cautiously approached that edge. Coming right up the middle, now only about twenty courses from the top, was Mustafa. Alone. On the hunt with an automatic rifle. He hadn't seen Hazard.