The Alpha Deception (17 page)

“In here,” the lead guard signaled, throwing the door open to what must have been Fass’s chamber.

Blaine picked up his pace just a little as he entered, ready to spring now, hands already starting for his guns.

The sight of a half dozen men wielding automatic rifles froze him in his tracks. Behind the guards was a huge desk, and Blaine caught a glimpse of the man behind it.

“Welcome to my home, Mr. McCracken,” said Megilido Fass.

Chapter 16

“PLEASE,” FASS CONTINUED
, “make yourself comfortable, but first drop your weapons on the floor.”

McCracken emptied his belt deliberately, one of Fass’s white-clad guards on either side of him. Both moved closer for a frisk.

“Be careful of this one,” Fass warned them. “He could strip your rifles away in the blink of an eye.”

“It’s nice to have my skills appreciated for once,” Blaine said, the frisk nearly complete.

Fass rose from behind his desk. “Here,” he said, tossing a towel to McCracken. “The blood is most unbecoming to you.”

Blaine caught the towel in midair and swiped away at his forehead, noticing for the first time a television monitor sitting atop Fass’s desk.

“I recorded your performance outside on tape,” the Greek explained. “Most impressive.”

“I’m expecting royalties every time you show that.”

“And rest assured I will show it often. It will be added to my permanent collection.”

Blaine surveyed the scene before him, searching for options. Fass was not at all what he expected. The Greek smuggler was tall and gaunt, dressed in a white suit, white shirt, and white silk tie. His flesh was bronzed by the Mediterranean sun and his jet-black hair was slicked down close to his scalp. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of narrow sunglasses. A young boy, dressed in white shirt and pants, stood behind him against the back wall next to a dry bar. The servant had long curly locks that tumbled to his shoulders and couldn’t have been older man fourteen.

“You were expecting me,” Blaine said.

Fass chuckled, grinning devilishly. “An old friend of yours made a number of phone calls telling us to be on the lookout.”

“Vasquez …”

Fass nodded. “I’m sure he’ll be pleased you remember him. He called me twice. For some reason he was sure I would be your next target.”

“You could have killed me downstairs if you wanted to.”

“Of course I could have.” Fass beamed. “But there would have been no sport in it.” He tilted his stare toward the monitor. “No permanent recording of your exploits for an epitaph.” Fass grinned again and pulled something from his pocket as he summoned the boy from the dry bar to his side. “Human life is nothing but a possession to be dealt with and replaced accordingly. Man is an intrinsically dispensable creature. Life and death are merely relative states of being I control within these walls.”

Fass grabbed the boy by the hair and jerked his head back. In the same instant, Blaine saw the object he had pulled from his pocket was a small blade that he now whipped up and across the boy’s throat.

“
No!”
McCracken screamed. But it was already too late when the guards on both sides moved to restrain him.

Blood poured outward from the neat slice in the boy’s throat, rushing down his white shirt. The boy staggered backwards, eyes empty and glazing over, clutching for the wound futilely as he crumbled to the white carpet behind Fass’s desk. Blaine heard the hideous, airless gurgle as death claimed him. He saw the boy’s blood pooling on the carpet.

“As I said,” Fass proceeded calmly, “people are mere possessions. You, meanwhile, have stripped me of this week’s allotment. I’ve had to figure out a way for you to make compensation.”

McCracken stopped pulling against the guards. “How about we dismiss the rest of your ‘possessions’ here and you try to slit
my
throat?”

Fass laughed and moved out from behind his desk. “Your reputation, as they say, has preceded you, Mr. McCracken. Vasquez warned me to keep my distance. He said you knew a dozen ways to kill a man with your bare hands in under two seconds.”

“Fourteen. I’ve picked up a few more these last few years.”

“Vasquez has not forgotten the debt he owes you.”

“I suppose he wants you to deliver me to him.”

“No,” said Fass, “he just wants you dealt with. He left the specific manner up to me.”

“You haven’t even asked what brought me here.”

“Because it doesn’t matter. Whatever your pursuits, I’m afraid they won’t be completed.”

“Pity.”

“Not totally.” And Fass stepped still closer, baiting McCracken to move. “It’s difficult to find a specimen like you these days. Many have crossed these walls but never one with your physical abilities and prowess. Vasquez asked only that I kill you. He left the choice of means up to me but, as I mentioned, death should be regarded as sport just as life is. Have you ever heard of the mythical Labyrinth, Mr. McCracken?”

“As in the Minotaur? Sure.”

“Good, because you’re going into it now.”

“I’ve reconstructed it, Mr. McCracken,” Fass told him as the guards escorted both of them down the corridor. “Here.”

They reached a stairway at the end of the long, curving hallway and began to descend.

“Let me review for you the myth you are about to become part of,” Fass resumed. “King Minos had the Labyrinth built to house the Minotaur. Born of the unholy union between a bull and the King’s wife, who lay hidden within a wooden cow, the Minotaur was a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man.” When they had reached the bottom of the stairway they walked down another corridor and out a back door of the mansion. “Athens was annually required to send a host of youths and maidens as tribute—and food—for the Minotaur. Finally Theseus sailed from Athens to slay the dreaded creature. And this he accomplished with the help of Minos’s daughter Ariadne, who gave him a ball of wool. He unravelled it on his way into the Labyrinth and then used it to find his way out.” They stopped at a break in a huge row of thick green bushes. “How would you like to play Theseus in my little game today, Mr. McCracken?”

“Only if I get to win like he did. But I suppose that depends on what you’ve got for a Minotaur.”

Fass grinned and led the way through the narrow passage in the bushes. Blaine saw a domed building, circular in design, perhaps sixty or so yards in diameter, though his angle made it difficult to judge. They moved toward a crowd of white-clad armed guards closer to the dome.

“Allow me to introduce
my
Minotaur, Mr. McCracken,” Fass announced proudly.

The guards parted, and Blaine felt himself grow cold. It was a huge man. No, more than huge, monstrous. Naked to the waist and wearing only what might have been a loincloth and sandals, the giant was as muscular as he was tall. Bulging bands of sweat-shined flesh rippled across his arms, shoulders, and chest. His thighs were layered with knobs of muscles. He stood like a statue, pectoral muscles popping slightly with his even breaths.

“Here is how the game is played, Mr. McCracken,” Fass explained. “You will enter the Labyrinth first, weaponless of course.”

“Not even a spool of wool?”

“It wouldn’t help you defeat my Minotaur. He will enter at his leisure from below, through a trapdoor. Defeat him and you win your freedom.”

“And let me guess,” Blaine said. “You’ve got plenty of your hidden video cameras down there to record every instant of the proceedings.”

“Of course. Without spectators, there is no sport. You should be grateful, Mr. McCracken. I’m offering you a chance to live.”

Even if that were true, the chance was minute, Blaine thought as he watched Fass’s Minotaur pull on a pair of gloves decorated with rows of sharp spikes protruding a half inch or so outward. Last the giant donned a bull’s-head mask complete with pointed horns which would make a formidable weapon for a man who knew how to wield them, as this one undoubtedly did.

“I must warn you, Mr. McCracken,” Fass told him, “that my Minotaur has never even come close to being defeated. But, then, he has never faced a challenge as worthy as the one you will pose. Remember, victory means your life. I expect a good show.” Then to his guards, “Lead him inside, but search him again first.”

The men ruffled Blaine twice over, until they were satisfied he had no other weapons. Then they led him up to the Labyrinth’s front door and shoved him through. The door slammed and echoed behind him. Blaine’s first thought was that the lighting was dim, little more than the glow off a digital clock in a darkened bedroom. He would make as much use of it as possible. Not waiting for his eyes to adjust, he began walking. Fifteen feet down the corridor he reached an abutment that forced him to take a right, then a left. He was totally at the mercy of the Labyrinth’s construction.

The problems it raised were many, and Blaine contemplated most of them in the seconds before the Minotaur’s expected entry. To begin with, there were the walls of the structure itself. If he became trapped in a false passageway, backed up against a corner, his chances of defeating the spiked and horned giant would be reduced significantly. He had to make the maze’s construction work
for
him somehow, perhaps taking the monster from behind. That task in itself would be close to impossible without a weapon. A man that huge and heavily muscled would feel little pain from a blow that would fell an ordinary man. Only a perfect strike would have any effect at all and McCracken wondered if in the near-darkness he could muster one.

Even if he managed to defeat the Minotaur, he had no illusions that Fass would in fact grant him his life.
The prospect
might appeal to the sportsman in Fass by providing motivation for McCracken to put on a good show. But no man in the Greek’s position would ever dare cross Vasquez. McCracken had to the here, at the hands of the Minotaur on videotape, or by the guns of Fass’s guards. It didn’t matter. Not only did he have to slay the Minotaur, he also had to escape the Labyrinth by a means other than the entrance—a problem far greater than what Theseus had faced even with his ball of wool.

Blaine kept walking, at first trying to memorize the twisting corridors for future reference. But each turn brought him to a corner he swore he had seen before yet knew he couldn’t have. He was totally confused, his sense of direction completely gone. He might have covered the entire swirling length of the Labyrinth or he might have gotten nowhere at all. Impossible to say.

There was a soft echo of a door being snapped back into place and McCracken knew the Minotaur had risen from the subterranean corridors beneath the structure. He strained his ears to hear the monster’s footsteps approaching, then recalled the giant’s feet had been clothed in light sandals that would not produce a sound. He could stay in the same place and wait for the Minotaur to make his move, but inaction was not part of McCracken’s nature. The thing to do was hunt the monster, who would expect that least of all. Fass would get a better show on his video than he could have possibly imagined.

The cameras! If he could find and disable them, he could blind Fass to whatever escape he chose after slaying the Minotaur … .

Wait, Blaine urged himself. He was getting ahead of himself, way ahead. First he had to deal with the creature, which promised to be a near impossible task in itself.

Not creature,
he reminded himself.
He’s just a man and that’s how I’ve got to think of him … .

McCracken swung right and found a wall before him. A quick turn to the left brought him to another. He had trapped himself and would have to double back. Damn! How could he hunt the monster hunting him if he couldn’t even find his way? He supposed the giant had memorized these corridors, but perhaps there were coded signs on the wall or floor.

Blaine felt the pounding of his heart intensify and fought to steady his breathing. He tried to listen for the sounds of the giant approaching, but his own thoughts got in the way.

Relax!
he urged himself.
Release! … .

Advice and training from Johnny Wareagle. Release everything, the big Indian had counseled him, and surrender to the forces. Feel what lies around you. Don’t wait to see or hear it.
Release!

McCracken stopped. He had come to a point in the Labyrinth where he could go left or right. He calmed himself and let his feelings take over. Going left would take him back in his own path. Going right was the answer.

He stayed on the move, thinking now that the best strategy would be to lure the Minotaur into a closed-off corridor and then attack. He came to the end of a small corridor and turned to reverse his footing.

The noise was slight, flesh grazing wood, but he had heard it. Blaine
released.
The Minotaur was three turns away, coming directly for him, aware of his presence.

A weapon, I need a weapon … .

McCracken pulled up his shirt quickly. Fass’s guards had searched him but neglected to strip off his belt with its heavy brass buckle. He had forgotten about it, just as they had. Wielded properly, it could make a potent weapon indeed.

Blaine yanked it through the loops and wrapped it twice around his arm, leaving a foot-and-a-half or so extended with the heavy buckle dangling free. He could feel
the
Minotaur closing now, and he imagined the sharp glove spikes and head horns. Others in this position would have waited to jump out when the giant was close. Waiting was what had gotten them killed.

McCracken headed toward the Minotaur’s position, felt him just around the next turn and lunged forward at the instant he expected him to appear.

The timing of the move was perfect. The Minotaur glided round the abutment just as Blaine swung his belt into violent motion. It lashed upward against the side of the giant’s mask. He grunted, and Blaine wasted no time in whipping the belt again. The Minotaur ducked late and the belt buckle snapped into his eye. This time the giant howled in pain and staggered, blinded and instinctively bringing the back of his spiked glove up to his brow.

McCracken continued his assault, blasting the much bigger man several times in the kidneys. Then he leaped behind the Minotaur and looped the belt around his throat. He pulled both ends tight, taking up the slack and tightening the noose. Blaine heard the rush of air trapped in the monster’s throat and felt certain he had won.