Authors: Robert Swartwood
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Conspiracies, #Terrorism, #Literature & Fiction, #Horror, #Thrillers, #Pulp
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•
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A
UGUSTUS
HELD
UP
his hands again for silence.
“I understand the interlude was entertaining for many of you. The live games we set up went very well. There was, however, an incident at one of the games. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. I assure you, we were in control of the situation the entire time. The person responsible thought he was working under subterfuge, when in reality we were tracking his every movement. This person, in fact, came to try to save the Man of Honor. This person, as you well may know, failed, and so his death tonight will accompany the Man of Honor. Brothers and sisters, I present to you the Man of Honor and the Man of Wax!”
The curtain rose, and suddenly more spotlights came on, glaring down on both of us.
And the audience went wild.
•
•
•
T
HE
KID
SAT
leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on the table, staring at the computer screen. Watching the yellow dots situated around the Fillmore. Watching in particular the two yellow dots that were right now moving toward it. In his earphones, Ronny said, “Two blocks away.”
•
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A
UGUSTUS
LET
THE
applause go on longer than before. Finally he held up his hands again, and the crowd quieted.
“For years the Man of Honor has waged a personal battle against us. He tried to stop what we were doing, and when that cost him his family, he promised revenge. But look at what revenge has brought him. The Man of Honor has become weak and pathetic. He is quite near death. And before tonight is over, he will beg for death. They both will!”
•
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•
M
ASON
PRESSED
HIS
back against the wall and rose to his feet. He reached into his dirty coat and gripped the Uzi. He heard the constant traffic on the street, but he also heard Ronny and Maya in the distance. The low growl of the engine. The heavy weight rolling over the pavement. It could have been anything, really, but Mason knew it was them, and he was ready. His hand gripped tightly around the Uzi. His other hand reached for his gun. Staring intently at the front of the Fillmore, while further up the street that low growl and heavy rolling neared. In his ear, Ronny said, “One block away.”
•
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•
A
S
THE
CROWD
roared again, four black masks came on stage. Two of them carried a long table topped with the same tools that had been used in the Torture Room: knives, pliers, hammers, saws. They set the table down and turned and headed back off stage. Two other black masks stayed. One of them, I knew, was Clark. This was confirmed almost immediately when he came up to stand directly behind me. He leaned down and whispered, “Are you ready for that secret now?”
•
•
•
M
AYA
HELD
ON
tight. She had been in many different kinds of vehicles before—especially during her past life—but had never once ridden in an armored security truck. She’d seen them countless times, of course, but had never actually sat in one. It wasn’t as comfortable as she would have liked. The truck wasn’t meant for high speeds, and Ronny was pushing it as hard as he could. They’d been parked blocks away, in a side street garage. The truck wasn’t stolen—they were “borrowing” it—but it wasn’t common to see armored trucks parked along the side of the street, especially at this time of night. So they waited in that garage, and now here they were, barreling down West 43rd Street, less than a block away, Ronny’s fingers white against the steering wheel. He didn’t slow, didn’t even tap the brakes. He just jerked the wheel to the left and sent them up over the curb straight toward the glass entrances doors of the Fillmore.
•
•
•
T
HE
APPLAUSE
WAS
just dying down when we heard it from somewhere outside the auditorium. It wasn’t clear at first what it was—some kind of sudden but dull explosion—but everything went still and silent at the same time. Clark had just breathed in, ready to say whatever he meant to say next, but instead leaned back. For a moment, the world was frozen in place. Then, suddenly, the auditorium was swallowed by darkness.
73
My wrists were tied behind my back to the chair, and my ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t move completely. There was still some give—just a little—and right after the lights went out, I leaned as far as I could to the right before immediately shoving all my weight to the left. That was where Clark had been standing only a moment earlier, and I was hoping he hadn’t moved.
He hadn’t.
He wasn’t as close as I would have liked, either, but I had to work with what I was given. It was enough, though, that the bulk of my weight went into him. He wasn’t expecting it, and went down hard. We both did. The chair was metal, so it wasn’t like it could snap apart (though I was hoping), and quite honestly, I wasn’t sure where things would go from there. Whatever was happening, it was going to happen fast, and I couldn’t waste a second.
Gunfire erupted in the auditorium, first coming from the balcony, then from all over.
Emergency lights came on a second later. They were scattered around the auditorium and backstage, but there weren’t many, and their combined glow didn’t bring much light.
Directly following the emergency lights came the fire alarm. It was a high-pitched blaring, and the dim radiance of the emergency lights was accompanied by a sudden and faltering strobe, cutting everyone’s rushed and hasty motions into half second snapshots. Those in the auditorium were already climbing to their feet, shouting and screaming.
I looked over at where Augustus Caesar had been standing only seconds ago. He was gone.
More gunfire started up somewhere backstage, coming from multiple weapons. Some of the reports were from semi-automatic handguns, spaced out a half second apart, while other reports were a nonstop stream of bullets, mostly from Uzis.
Most of my chair and myself had fallen onto Clark. He groaned and crawled out from under me, pushing the chair aside. I watched his stunted movements from the strobes situated around the stage. He tore his mask off and glared down at me. He lifted his foot, meaning, I think, to smash me in the face. Before he could, though, the gunfire neared us and he ducked away. He dropped his mask to the floor, reached for a gun under his robe, but someone was hurrying toward us, firing at him, and he dove over the side of the stage into the front row of the frantic crowd.
A black mask sprinted toward me, the movement just as rushed and hasty in the strobes as everyone else’s. The black mask was carrying an Uzi. The black mask’s other hand reached underneath its robe to come back with something long and black. The black mask flicked its wrist and a silver blade jerked out from the handle.
I watched this happening—the black mask coming closer and closer, an Uzi and knife in each hand—and did everything I could to free myself from the chair. But the zip ties were too tight. What little room I’d had was enough to tip the chair over into Clark. That was it.
The black mask came to a stop right over me. It leaned down, extending the knife. I clenched my teeth, took a breath, waiting for it to happen, for the blade to slice into my heart.
Instead, the black mask cut the ties binding my wrists in place, before moving to the two front legs of the chair. Seconds later, I was back on my feet, breathing hard, staring at the black mask.
“Which one are you?” I asked.
The gloved hand gripping the knife reached up to take off the black mask so I could see his face.
“Chin,” he said.
“Who’s up in the balcony?”
“Seung.”
“Bae and Ho Sook?”
“They are nearby.”
I nodded and started to say something else when someone opened fire. This entire time gunfire had been filling the auditorium—Seung up in the balcony, picking off black masks, many of whom were returning fire—but this gunfire was coming from backstage, directed at us.
Chin pushed me aside and raised the Uzi and let out a spray of bullets. He paused just momentarily to hand me the switchblade.
I took the knife and hurried over to Carver. I knelt and cut the binds keeping him in place. Only it wasn’t like Carver could stand up out of the wheelchair. Even if he did, it wasn’t like he was going to get far.
More gunfire came our way, and Chin returned fire toward a few more black masks. These masks scattered, some disappearing through a door, the others hiding behind posts.
I closed the knife and slipped it in my pocket. I grabbed the handles of Carver’s wheelchair.
Carver shouted, “I can walk!”
I ignored him and asked Chin, “Do you know where their computers are?”
“The third floor.”
“I’m going to need to get up there.”
“Caesar is not dead. We must kill him.”
“Agreed. But right now I need to get Carver to the lobby.”
The alarm kept blaring. The strobes kept up their frantic pulse. Along with taking down black masks from his place up in the balcony, Seung was also throwing down canisters of tear gas. The gas began to fill the auditorium, causing the already hysterical members of the Inner Circle to become even more hysterical. Their screams and shouts increased tenfold. They moved one way and then moved another, not sure where to go. Many pushed through whatever doors they could find, trying to escape despite the fact none of them knew what awaited them on the other side. The time for patience and decorum was over. Now it was every man and woman for themselves.
Chin cleared the way. He fired indiscriminately, taking down anyone with a black or white mask.
Many of the fallen and dead black masks we passed had weapons. I grabbed a handgun from one of them, an Uzi from another. I gave the Uzi to Carver. I still had on only one shoe, which made my running awkward. At one point I paused just long enough to tear off my other shoe and toss it aside.
Soon we came to the lobby. The armored truck had done its job well, smashing through the front doors. Most of it now sat in the lobby. Both doors were open, Maya and Ronny gone. Where they were, I wasn’t sure, but the gunfire kept up, as did the shouting and screaming. We came deeper into the lobby and I saw a homeless man with an Uzi.
“Mason!”
He fired off a couple more rounds, taking down a few more black masks—this was how I thought of them despite the fact most had already taken off their masks—before rushing over to us. He didn’t say anything, just nodded at me, then at Carver.
I thought about the Torture Room, seeing his wife and son there, and wasn’t sure what to say. I’d been dreading this moment. Telling him the one thing I knew might—well, okay,
would
—set him off. Which may or may not be a good thing under the circumstances. Still, as someone who had once been a husband and father, I knew the news might break him.
Mason looked at Chin. “Who’s this?”
“Chin,” I said, and then thought of something. I turned to Chin. “Were there any survivors from tonight’s games?”
Something darkened in Chin’s eyes. Clearly he, too, was disturbed by the fact he hadn’t been able to do anything to help those innocents who had been brought here to be tortured or raped or killed without blowing his cover. He nodded.
“Do you know where they’re being kept?
“Yes.”
“Then take him,” I said, pointing at Mason. “Get as many of them out as you can.”
“We must kill Caesar.”
“Just do it!” I shouted.
He stared back at me, his face impassive. Finally he said to Mason, “Come with me.”
Mason gave me an uncertain look. I told him to go, and he hurried after Chin.
Then I turned back to Carver, meaning to grab the handles of his wheelchair again, when I saw one of the black masks across the lobby raise a Heckler & Koch MP5 at us.
74
Within a minute, two police cars swarmed up on the Fillmore. They came without their sirens and without their flashing lights.
Drew, watching them through the scope, said, “Four cops just showed up.”
The Kid’s voice came through the earpiece: “Nothing went out over dispatch. These fuckers are dirty.”
“Got it.”
All four cops piled out of their cars, each gripping a sidearm. Drew sighted on the first bent cop’s head and squeezed the trigger. The cop went down in a mist of blood. Before the three others could react, Drew took down the second one, then the third. The fourth cop managed to drop behind the patrol car.