Temple of Fear (17 page)

Slip-slop-slip-slop-slippety-slop-slop.
The guard was running down the corridor. Nick let out a wail of terror.
"Tasuketel"

The heavy bar dropped with a bang. The door opened a few inches. The smoke billowed out. Nick had tucked his useless right hand into the pocket of his jacket, to keep it out of the way. Now he snarled deep in his throat and rammed his big shoulders at the door. He was like a massive spring that has been coiled too long and is at last released.

The door slammed outward with a bang, knocking the guard backward and off balance. It was the Ainu he had seen earlier. He had the Tommy gun in front of him, at the ready, and as Nick ducked in under it the man squeezed off a burst by reflex. Flame seared the AXEman's face. He put everything he had into a short left hand to the man's gut. He bulled him back against the wall and put a knee in his groin and butted him in the face. The guard let out a bubbling groan and began to fall. Nick slashed him across the Adam's apple with his hand and butted him again. Teeth broke and blood gushed from the man's ruined mouth. He let go the Tommy gun. Nick grabbed it before it hit the floor.

The guard was still only halfway down, leaning drunkenly against the wall. Nick kicked his legs from under him and he went crashing down.

The machine gun was heavy even for Nick, with his one good hand, and it took him a second to get it balanced. The guard tried to get up. Nick kicked him in the face.

He stood over the man and put the muzzle of the Tommy gun within an inch of his head. The guard was still conscious enough to look past the muzzle and up the barrel to the clip where the heavy .45's waited with deadly patience to tear him apart.

"Where is Johnny Chow? Where is the girl? One second and I kill you!"

The guard did not doubt it. He kept very quiet and stammered out the words in a bloody froth.

"They go Toyo — go Toyo! Go for make riots, fires, I swear. I tell — you not kill!"

Toyo must mean central Tokyo. Downtown. He'd guessed right. He had been out over twenty-four hours.

He put a foot on the man's chest. "Who else is around here? Other men? Here? They did not leave you to guard me alone?"

"One man. One man only. Now sleep in office, I swear." Sleep. Through all this? Nick slammed the guard over the skull with the butt of the Tommy gun. He turned and ran down the corridor toward the office where Johnny Chow had shot the Russian, Dimitri.

There was a spurt of flame from the office door and a slug made a nasty noise past Nick's left ear. Sleeping, hell! The bastard was awake now and he had Nick cut off from the yard. There was no time to go exploring, to try to find another way out.

A hornet sound, too close. A slug gouged the wall just beside him. Nick turned, shot out the single dim light in the corridor and ran back toward the stairs that led down to the dungeons. He vaulted the body of the unconscious guard and kept running.

Silence now. Silence and darkness. The man in the office was reloading and waiting.

Nick Carter stopped running. He fell to his belly and crawled until he could look up and see, barely see, the lighter rectangle of an open skylight above him. A waft of cool air came down and he saw a star, a single faint star, glittering in the center of the square. He tried to remember how high up the skylights were. He had noted them yesterday when they brought him in. He couldn't remember and knew it didn't matter. He had to try it anyway.

He tossed the Tommy gun up through the skylight. It hit and bounced and made a hell of a racket. The man in the -office heard it and opened fire again, pouring lead down the narrow corridor. Nick hugged the floor. One of the bullets ticked through .his hair without touching the scalp. He exhaled silently. Christ! That was close.

The man in the office emptied his magazine. Silence again. Nick stood up, tensed his legs and leaped, reaching with his good left hand. His fingers locked over the coaming of the skylight and he hung swaying for a moment, then began to pull himself up. His arm tendons cracked and complained. He grinned bitterly in the dark. All those thousands of one-arm chin-ups were paying off now.

He got his elbow over the coaming and swung his legs out. He was on the roof of the warehouse. Around him the shipyards were silent and desolate, but here and there lights were on in warehouses and the docks. One especially bright light glittered like a constellation from the top of a crane.

No blackout yet. Over Tokyo the sky was brilliant with reflected neon. A red warning winked from the top of Tokyo Tower and far to the south searchlights were radiating over the International Airport. Some two miles to the west was the Imperial Palace. Where was Richard Philston at this moment?

He found the Tommy gun and cradled it in the crook of his good arm. Then, running softly, the way a man runs over freight cars, he went down the length of the warehouse. He could see well enough now to leap each skylight as he came to it.

After the last skylight the building widened and he knew he was over the office and near the loading dock. He went on tiptoe, making very little sound on the tar paper. A single dim light gleamed on a standard in the yard where the rusty oil drums marched like globular phantoms. Something near the gate caught the light and reflected it and he saw that it was a jeep. Painted black. His heart leaped and he felt the beginning of real hope. There might yet be a chance to stop Philston. The jeep meant a way into town. But first he had to get across the yard. That wasn't going to be easy. The single light gave just enough illumination for that bastard in the office to see him. He didn't dare try to shoot out the light. Might as well send in his calling card.

There was no time to ponder. He just had to barge ahead and take his chances. He ran on, over the roof extension that covered the loading dock, trying to get as far from the office as possible. He reached the end of the roof and looked down. There was a stack of oil drums directly under him. They looked rickety.

Nick slung the Tommy gun over his shoulder and, cursing his useless right hand, let himself gently over the edge of the roof. His fingers clutched the gutter. It began to sag and tear away. His toes touched the oil drums. Nick let out a breath of relief — then the gutter tore away in his hand and his full weight came down on the drums. The stack swayed perilously, sagged, gave way in the middle and came crashing down with the sound of a boiler factory in full production.

The AXE agent was lucky he wasn't killed then and there. As it was he lost a lot of skin before he managed to scramble free and start running for the jeep. Nothing else for it now. It was the only game in town. He ran awkwardly, limping because a half full drum-had bruised his ankle. He carried the Tommy gun half on its side, the butt against his belly and the muzzle trained on the loading dock near the office door. He wondered how many bullets he had left in the clip.

The man in the office was no coward. He ran out of the office, spotted Nick zigzagging across the yard and let go with his pistol. Dirt kicked up around Nick's feet and a slug kissed his. cheek as it passed. He ran on, not firing back, really worrying about the clip now. He should have checked it.

The gunner left the loading dock and ran toward the jeep, trying, to cut Nick off. He kept sniping at Nick as he ran, but his fire was erratic and way off.

Nick still did not shoot back, not until they nearly met at the jeep. The range was point blank. The man whirled and took aim this time, holding his pistol with two hands to steady it. Nick dropped to one knee, balanced the Tommy gun over his knee and let the clip go.

The machine gun raved in the night. Most of the slugs took the man in the belly and blew him backward to drape him over the jeep's hood. His pistol clattered to the ground.

Nick dropped the Tommy gun and ran to the jeep. The man was dead, his guts shot out. Nick pulled him off the jeep and went through his pockets. He found three spare clips and a hunting knife with a four-inch blade. His smile was cold. This was more like it. A Tommy gun wasn't the weapon to cart around Tokyo.

He picked up the dead man's pistol. An old Browning .380 — these Chicoms had a weird assortment of weapons. Collected in China and smuggled into various countries. Ammo would be the real problem — but they seemed to solve that somehow.

He slipped the Browning into his belt, the hunting knife into a jacket pocket and legged into the jeep. The keys were in the ignition. He twisted, jammed the starter and the old vehicle came to life with a shattering roar of exhaust. No muffler!

The gate was open. He shoved his foot down and the old rat-

tletrap went banging and skidding over the oily concrete. He headed for the causeway. Tokyo glowed in the misty night like a huge iridescent bauble. No blackout yet. What in hell time was it?

He reached the end of the causeway and found the answer. A clock in a window said: 9.33. Beyond the clock was a phone kiosk. Killmaster hesitated, then jammed on the brakes, leaped out of the jeep and ran to the kiosk. He really didn't want to do it — he wanted to follow through and clean this thing up himself. But he'd better not. Too risky. Things had gone too far. He would have to call the American Embassy and ask for help. For a moment he racked his brain, trying to remember the recognition code of the week, got it and went into the booth.

He didn't have a coin to his name.

Nick stared at the phone in rage and frustration. Goddamnit! By the time he could explain to a Japanese operator, coax her into putting him through to the Embassy, it would be too late. It was probably too late now.

At that moment the light in the kiosk went out. All around him, up and down the street, in the shops and stores and houses and taverns, the lights went out.

Nick picked up the phone and listened for a second. Dead. Too late. He was right back on his own. He ran back to the jeep.

The great city lay in darkness except for a central smudge of light near Tokyo Station. Nick switched on the jeep lights and drove as fast as he could toward that solitary swatch of brilliance in the gloom. Tokyo Station must have its own power. Something to do with the electric trains that ran in and out.

As he drove, leaning on the jeep's harshly croaking horn — for people were beginning to come into the streets now — he saw that the blackout was not as total as he supposed. Central Tokyo was out, except for the Station, but around the perimeter of the city there were still patches of light. It was a matter of individual transformers and sub-stations and Johnny Chow's people couldn't knock them all out at once. It would take time.

One of the patches on the horizon flickered and went out. They were getting around to it!

He got into a boil of traffic and had to slow down. Many drivers had pulled over and were waiting to see what would happen. A stalled electric tram blocked an intersection. Nick steered around it and kept inching the jeep through the crowd.

Candles and lamps were flickering like big fireflies in the houses. He passed a group of laughing kids on a corner. To them it was a real ball.

At Ginza dori he swung left. He could make a right at Sotobori dori, go a couple of blocks, then turn north on a street that would take him straight into the Palace grounds. He knew a postern there that led to a bridge over the moat. The place would be crawling with cops and the military, of course, but that was all right. He just had to find someone with enough authority, make them listen to him and get the Emperor into hiding and safety.

He wheeled into Sotobori. Just ahead, beyond where he intended to swing north, were the spacious grounds of the American Embassy. Killmaster was sorely tempted. He needed help! This thing was getting too big for him. But it was a matter of-seconds, precious seconds, and he couldn't afford the loss of even one second. As he pushed the jeep, tires screaming around the corner the lights in the Embassy came on again. Emergency generator. It occurred to him then that the Palace would also have emergency generators, would use them, and Philston must have known this. Nick shrugged his big shoulders and stamped hard on the gas, trying to push it down through the floorboards. Just get there. In time.

He could hear the sullen murmur of the crowd now. Nasty. He had heard mobs before and they always scared him a little, as much as anything ever frightened him. A mob was unpredictable, a crazed beast that might do anything.

He heard shooting. A ragged scatter of shots in the dark, just ahead. Fire, raw and savage, stained the blackness. He came to an intersection. The Palace grounds were only three blocks ahead now. A burning police car lay on its side. It exploded and the blazing fragments trailed up and out like miniature rockets. The mob surged back, screaming and running for cover. Farther down the street three more police cars were blocking the way, their moving spotlights playing over the packed throng. Behind them a fire truck was moving into place beside a hydrant and Nick caught a glimpse of a water cannon.

A thin line of police came down the street. They wore riot helmets and carried batons and pistols. Behind them more police were firing tear gas over the line and into the crowd. Nick heard the gas shells break and diffuse with the typical damp
thuuckk
—
thuuckk.
The stink of the lacriminators wafted through the crowd. Men and women gasped and coughed as the gas took hold. The retreat began to turn into a rout. Nick, helpless, swung the jeep to the curb and waited. The throng broke on the jeep, like sea on a headland, and flowed around it.

Nick stood up in the jeep. Looking over the mob, beyond the pursuing police and the high wall, he could see lights here and there in the Palace and grounds. They were using the generators. That was going to make Philston's job tougher. Or was it? Uneasiness plagued the AXEman. Philston would have known about the generators and discounted them. How did he expect to get to the Emperor?