Single Combat (31 page)

The silt stung his eyes as he fought to keep his orientation. He exhaled at the first lightheaded tingles that signaled oxygen starvation, emerged for a breath, and saw through stinging eyes that he'd been swept a full seventy meters behind the barge. His flotation bag bobbed lazily, angling toward distant pilings. He submerged again, kicking hard. A long half-minute later he felt his way between pilings, saw that he was in shadow; surfaced noiselessly. Mouth open wide, he made his breathing as silent as possible and kept his arms below the surface to prevent splashing. He was half-blind from silt, breathless, weaponless.

No, never entirely weaponless. Sean Lasser had taught him long before: when you don't have a weapon, make one—preferably a surprise. He had his denims, shorts, and belt. Careful silent lungfuls of air gave him his second wind and, blinking furiously, he stripped his belt loose.

Just above the waterline ran an ancient rickety scaffold of boards, a chancy footpath for structural inspectors. Quantrill was feeling with his feet for purchase against the submerged metal sheathing when he heard, muffled by echoes, a voice that chilled him: "Negative, Marty; if he's not on that flatcar he's probably holed up somewhere on the barge." Ten meters away, the indistinct outline of a big man showed against a piling. The voice was unquestionably that of Seth Howell.

Quantrill's heart stuttered, then steadied. No hope now of climbing onto the catwalk, and no telling how long Howell had been standing on it. Well, if he couldn't climb up, Seth Howell would just have to come down. Quantrill had done some of his best work underwater. When the massive Howell advanced along the catwalk, Quantrill could trip him with a noose made from the belt.

But Howell was disposed to wait. The hulking shoulders lifted, and now Quantrill's vision was good enough to reveal Howell's left hand against the throat mike of a headset. Of course the sonofa-bitch wouldn't have a critic! "Told you before, Ethridge," he growled softly; "we don't
want
him alive and whining to these people. Bag him the instant you get a positive I.D." Pause. "No, maintain your cover and make sure he doesn't go over the side while Cross goes aboard. I'm staying put; he's got to flush sooner or later. If I know Quantrill he'll head for the shadows down here."

Quantrill smiled grimly and headed for Howell; slid directly under the catwalk, grateful for the buoyancy of salt water, not daring to grip the boards lest Howell feel them sway underfoot. The slap of waves masked the tiny swirls that marked Quantrill's approach. Then, almost below Howell's big feet, Quantrill paused to assess his position.

Angrily then, from Howell: "You've got a goddam Presidential directive, Marty; use it! Get those customs assholes in gear and remember he's carrying plague so they're to shoot on sight."

Howell faced outward, toward the barge, one hand caressing the throat mike while the other held his chiller. Without warning, a snakelike object flew up before his face, the belt uncoiling in midair, and Howell instinctively drew back with knees flexed, groping with his left hand for a piling. He heard a suck of water below, felt the catwalk sag, then felt a vicious forearm chop behind his knees and vented a single "Whup!" before he struck the water.

For a man of modest size, Quantrill enjoyed a great deal of upper-body strength but knew that Howell's massive upper torso overmatched him. And if Howell got half a chance with that chiller he could fire it underwater. Quantrill's advantages lay in surprise, a lungful of air, and the quickness to grapple for that gun-hand before Howell could kill him with it. Maybe.

Of course that left Howell's left hand free. Quantrill caught the big man's right sleeve, slid beneath him, managed to get both hands on Howell's right wrist while clamping his legs around Howell's long upper thighs.

Howell's head snapped back in a head-butt, catching the smaller man squarely in the middle of the forehead. It was a score; another like that could knock his assailant unconscious.

Quantrill slid down, pressing his face between Howell's shoulders, and felt the long left arm snaking back, its hand scrabbling for Quantrill's groin. Instead the powerful fingers found the fleshy part of Quantrill's inner thigh through his trousers and wrenched with sickening force. It was like a bite from a horse, and it kept on biting.

Quantrill grunted, a few bubbles bursting from his nostrils, and with both arms surrounding Howell, heaved as hard and as abruptly as he could. The impact of his own chiller's butt into his solar plexus caused Howell numbing pain and, worse, the loss of a great gout of air. At that point he did what he should have done first: released Quantrill's thigh and snatched at his hands. With a few broken fingers Quantrill would be candy.

But Quantrill was wondering when Howell would go for his hands. The instant he felt the big bony fingers grope for his, Quantrill let go with his right hand, his left still clutching Howell's right sleeve, spinning the big man around. At the same instant Quantrill unscissored his legs, thrusting away from Howell with his knees so that the larger man spun faster. On land, Howell could have prevented this maneuver, but not while flailing in frictionless liquid darkness while his lungs ached.

Howell was prying back on Quantrill's ring finger when he felt that loose right hand grip his left, and then he felt the stunning impact of two bare heels in his face. He fired the chiller without much hope on full auto, felt the septum of his nose crumble under a second pounding of those pitiless heels, sensed the tingle in his skull spreading along his torso, and tried to disengage. It was not entirely panic; he could tell that his hands were no longer as strong as Quantrill's. The difference was air, air,
air
…

Quantrill let the chiller go; he knew better than to fire it, knew also that at least one round had struck him in the right pectoral after losing most of its punch in its passage through water. He felt Howell's hands growing lax, knew that he
must
keep pounding with his feet. His heel encountered Howell's chin, shattered the jaw; and Quantrill distinctly felt the quiver of Seth Howell's weakening body as the two collided with a piling.

With all but a few opponents, Quantrill might have given quarter. But Howell's flailing fist struck him above the still-healing head wound by chance, and the result was a half-second of hallucinatory rage. Quantrill's enemy was a piece of Control's forebrain, a calculating monster, killer of Marbrye Sanger. Quantrill placed his bare feet on Howell's torso and, without releasing the hand, pivoted completely around the axis of Howell's shoulder. He heard the explosive scream underwater.

He almost lost the jerking, pulsating body of Howell but broke the surface with the man's shirt in his grasp; whirled in search of enemies; grasped the catwalk with his free hand. When he hauled Howell to the surface as a possible shield, the shirt tore away. Howell still moved but breathed more water than air. Nose torn half away, jaw a shapeless ruin, right arm free of its socket—Howell would lead no more death squads. Quantrill's last concern with Howell was in wrenching the signet ring from a dying finger; its garrote might come in handy. When he pulled himself up to the catwalk his enemy lay face down in the water, naked to the waist. Quantrill left him, racing crazily down the catwalk, scanning between pilings until he spotted the garbage bag.

From Howell's backward plunge until Quantrill emerged for breath, some twenty-five seconds elapsed—considering their combined knowledge of combat moves, something of a marathon. He had to swim for the bag and, hauling it up to the catwalk again, Quantrill saw something that sped his flashing hands. Its broad naked back and arms awash, head down, the body of Seth Howell had floated out into September sunshine.

"Howell, Cross; there he is," sang a familiar baritone from somewhere above, beyond Quantrill's vision. Quantrill snatched his H & K automatic, freed its safety, froze in place. He did not hear the chiller but saw Howell's body jump, submerge, roll into its back. Then Kent Ethridge's horrified, "
Howell
, Christ almighty! Quantrill's down there already!"

Quantrill left his shoes and sprinted down the swaying wooden walk in search of an upward stair. He found one at the end, blocked by a steel gate with a padlock that no small-caliber handgun could mangle. Above him in the gloom ran triangulation rods, bolted between pilings. Quantrill did not intend to swim for it, now that dozens might be watching.

As he passed the site of his duel, he wondered if Howell had taken a second stairway and then suddenly he located it, as a white-clad form came pelting down a shadowed stairwell in stockinged feet. It stopped at the first piling and disappeared—Ethridge, pausing to let his eyes adjust.

Far above, Quantrill heard shouts and hammering feet. In the stairwell, more heavy footfalls. A strange voice in Texan accents: "All right commander, or whoever you are, that's enough! Come up here with your hands—", and then the customs man moved into view, and Quantrill heard the cough of Ethridge's chiller. The man spun on the stairs, grunted, scrambled upward cursing and moaning.

Quantrill waited in wonder, hidden by a piling. More shouts from above but no more rash heroes. A white naval jacket fell to the catwalk. Shakily, then, almost in a sob: "This is for her, Quantrill—for Sanger. I know you're there, I can smell you. Come on! Mano-a-mano, you baby-raping bastard," and almost crooning, begging: "Just you and me." Then finally an agonized scream: "QUANTRILL!"

For Sanger? It had the ring of a vendetta; and poor Ethridge had never quit trying for her favor—not ever. Quantrill was tempted to reply but had better sense than to give his position away.

"Quantrill!" Sobbing outright, with no attempt at stealth. Almost as if Kent Ethridge was asking for a fast snuff. "She was too good for you," echoed under the pier. "Maybe for me, too.
QUANTRILL
?"

It was just possible, Quantrill thought, that Ethridge was truly whacked out. More probably running on Control's orders, a decoy to draw him out. But he was doing one hell of an imitation of a grief-crazed fool.

One hell of a gymnast, too. "Spare me your problems, Cross; I'm going in alone," said Ethridge in normal tones, then raised his voice: "Try me, Quantrill! We can go out together." Quantrill's eyes widened in astonishment as he saw Kent Ethridge soar into space.

A creak from the structural support, and Ethridge was swinging up and over. Not an easy shot—but Ethridge's chiller was snugged into its armpit nest, no immediate risk. The gymnast hurtled up, slipped, regained his balance, stood on a horizontal rod masked by another piling.

Quantrill felt gooseflesh. Whatever Control told Ethridge, they couldn't see that vast jungle gym under the pier, couldn't possibly know of his in sane risks: a parallel-bars routine in rotten lighting, diagonals crisscrossing his path, moisture everywhere. No, the crazy sonofabitch was really doing it on his own, daring Quantrill to reveal himself; hoping he could bring his chiller into play before he died.

He's willing to die for her, now that it's too late. My God, he's me
. Quantrill sidled against his piling, paying no attention to the commotion above on the pier, sliding the H & K's magazine out without a clatter. Gunfire erupted in a muffled exchange from the barge as Quantrill slipped the curare-tipped rounds into one hip pocket, pulled the magazine of ball ammo from the other. He wondered what the hell those people were shooting at.

A faint creak, and Ethridge flipped head downward, using diagonals this time, a clean lovely maneuver in a pike position to the next horizontal rod. Quantrill shifted again, still unseen; felt water trickle from the fresh magazine and blew into it without thinking.

Ethridge heard it. "You're getting it in her memory," he said. "I wanted to be sure you knew." Dead calm in the voice now.

"She got me out, Ethridge." A part of Quantrill could not believe the rest of him could be so stupid as to speak. He went on doing it: "That's why Control pulled her plug! Howell ordered it—and you just shot him. Thanks."

"Murdering shit; you're lying." Ethridge seemed to be moving nearer.

"Why d'you think I haven't bagged you already, Kent? Every time you shift position I get a clean shot."

"Better take it, assbreath."

Quantrill found the lie easy: "She wanted to get you out too, Kent. She told me so, damn you."

"Shut up. I see those wet footprints, Teddy. I know where you are."

Another creak, and Quantrill flicked his head out to check. Ethridge pendulumed almost overhead, one hand missing a diagonal, and as the gymnast recovered he saw Quantrill's adder-quick draw at a range of less than five meters. For an instant they were face to face. There was no shot.

Then Ethridge flung himself away to the safety of another piling. He ducked from sight and Quantrill could hear him mutter, "Christ Jesus; Christ Jesus," over and over, at the knowledge that he had been spared certain death.

Quantrill: "Now goddammit, will you believe me?"

Silence. Then shaky muffled breathing. Quantrill edged out until he could see an arm; a shoulder. Kent Ethridge leaned perfectly still against the piling, high up, his face in his hands. "Kent."

No response.

"Kent, why was it a crime for us to love the same woman? And why does one of
us
have to die for it? Control is our target."

A long sigh, a grunt. It could have been agreement.

"You know I had you back there. You goddam
know
it! But icing you is the last thing Sanger would've wanted. If you get your ticket punched, how can you help me hit Control?"

An exhalation. Then after a long pause, a rapping on metal: SOS.

"Got it. If you'd rather trust me than those cocksuckers behind your ear, tell 'em you're going into a sewer or something and come down from there with your hands clean."

He tried to hear Ethridge's mutters, but a loud-hailer on the patrol boat was making too much noise. He stood out of its view, weapon at his side, and watched Kent Ethridge's lithe descent.

The loud-hailer finished its spiel two hundred meters down the pier, burbled nearer, started over. "Commander Niles, your Mr. Fairbanks has been shot while resisting arrest. You are surrounded. Come out unarmed. Mr. Conrad of Eureka: you are among friends; please do not show yourself or fire on your rescuers." The crew of the patrol boat took no chances and kept out of sight as they moved on to repeat the message. Obviously they didn't know the exact position of the men under the pier, but now it was only a question of time.