“Yes, I believe she would,” said Drakov, quietly.
“I’m not asking you for myself,” said Forrester. “Remember how your mother died. Remember how you tried to help and couldn’t.”
Drakov turned pale. “How did you know that?”
“Falcon, told me all about it in a letter,” said Forester, heavily. “She didn’t spare me much. She seemed to take a lot of pleasure in reconstructing the graphic details of the scene from what you must have told her. Undoubtedly, she embellished a great deal. Somehow, I can’t imagine you describing her being raped in quite that manner.”
Drakov gritted his teeth. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Turn around,” he said.
Forrester hesitated for a moment, then complied, slowly turning his back to him, facing the stone wail. He heard a muffled sob.
“The chronoplate is beneath her cot,” he said. “I will give you the sequence code for its tailgate device. Set the coordinates for your time and send her home.”
“No!” said Andre. “Moses, you can’t-”
Forrester reached out quickly and rendered her unconscious with a nerve pinch. Then, under his son’s direction, he deactivated the tailgate device on the chronoplate, assembled the border circuits, programmed the transition coordinates, and clocked her to Plus Time, to Pendleton Base. Then he turned to face his son,
“Here,” said Drakov, tossing him the control unit. “If Major Priest is still alive, then perhaps this will give him a fighting chance.”
Forrester turned off the defense systems, then tossed the unit onto the cot. It would end here and now, one way or another. Perhaps they had failed and it was all pointless, anyway. But his son was his responsibility. He would have liked to take out Falcon, but if she did not return in the next moment, he would be forced to leave her to Priest and Delaney, assuming they were still alive. He could wait no longer. At least Andre was clear.
Drakov lowered the laser and, to Forrester’s astonishment, dropped it on the floor.
“We shall settle this like gentlemen,” he said, as Forester stared at him uncomprehendingly. “You have dishonored my mother, sir. I demand satisfaction. The choice of weapons is yours.”
Forrester closed his eyes. He was seized by a sudden, irrational impulse to laugh. A duel. His son was challenging him to a duel.
“I fear that we have no sabres here,” said Drakov, “but we have the lasers and a number of revolvers. Or, if you prefer, wean use knives.”
Forrester smiled, ruefully. “What would you suggest?”
“Under the circumstances, I would favor knives,” said Drakov. “The room is quite small and would provide for no proper test of marksmanship.”
Forrester sighed and shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, softly. “God damn it, I just can’t.”
“You refuse me?” said Drakov, frowning.
“No. No, I don’t have that right, Son,” he said. “You misunderstood. I have a small device strapped to my chest beneath my shirt. It contains a nerve gas, very quick and very lethal.”
“I see,” said Drakov. “That is why you were so concerned about Corporal Cross.”
“Give me a moment,” said Forrester, “and I’ll remove it.”
Drakov nodded and started taking off his own shirt as Forrester removed his. As Forrester disarmed the device and took it off, Drakov tossed aside his shirt, revealing a massive, muscular chest, powerful arms and rock- hard abdominals. He took two knives, both daggers with ten inch blade, and offered Forrester his choice.
It was almost dawn.
13
Lucas hit the moat feet first and thrashed his way to the surface. He was barely able to tread water. He knew that he was functioning on adrenalin and he wondered how long it would be before he collapsed. It was some thirty or forty yards to the drawbridge, a bit less to the bank. He struck out laboriously for the bank. He managed to pull himself out and he lay there for a moment on the ground, trying to get his breath back. The plasma burns were throbbing and he was shivering. With an effort, he picked himself up and began walking along the bank towards the chateau. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got there. He merely tried to concentrate on one step at a time. That was effort enough. He moved from tree to net using the trunks for support, resting as briefly as he could when it seemed that his energy had completely given out and then forcing himself to go on. He tried not to think about the mission. Apparently, it had failed. He tried not to think about Forrester or Finn or Andre. He tried not to think about the Timekeepers or about the pain and he tried not to imagine what he must look like with half his face burned away. He had seen what the plasma had done to his leg and the sight of it alone, much less the smell, was enough to make him gag. He concentrated all his will on getting to the castle somehow. All he could do was to go on. He was still alive and so long as he was alive, he still had a job to do.
“It’s over,” Falcon said. “He’s dead!”
“Perhaps,” said Hentzau, “but there’s still the king. Release him or I will fire this mysterious weapon of yours.”
“If I release him, you’ll kill me,” she said.
“Perhaps,” said Hentzau. “Perhaps I’ll turn you over to Colonel Sept and give you to him as a present. Or perhaps I’ll take advantage of the opportunity to see how good you really are with a sabre. There should be no interruptions now.”
She looked at him for a moment, then released the king. Coughing, Rudolf crawled away from her. Hentzau took the laser away from her head and allowed her to stand. He backed off a space, then tossed the weapon aside.
“I’ve always preferred steel, anyway,” he said.
Falcon smiled and drew her own Sabre. “You’re a fool, Rupert. You should have killed me.”
“You’re probably right,” said Bentsen, grinning at her. “But where would be the sport in that?”
“If it’s sport you want,” she said, “you’re about to get more than you can handle.”
Hagan threw back his head and laughed. “En garde,” The hall began to echo with the sound of clanging steel.
Father and son circled each other warily, knives held ready, each looking for an opening, Forrester quickly saw that his son was an experienced knife fighter. Drakov had assumed a slightly bent over stance with his balance on the balls of his feet, one hand held out before him with the arm bent a little, held slightly crossways of the body. Unlike the amateur, who knew no better, he held his knife not out before him, but in close to the body so that he could stab out or slash without leaving his knife hand out where it might be grasped or cut or where the knife could be kicked away. His eyes were on Forrester’s, that being the only sure method to be constantly alert for any sign of movement. He carried a lot of muscle, but he moved nimbly, like a dancer, darting in for a quick feint, pulling back at once when he saw that Forrester had read the move, skipping lightly out of the way when Forrester attempted a move of his own.
There was no flurry of knife blades, no tricky motions with the hands to distract the opponent. Both men knew what they were doing and this was very serious business. Each used utter economy of motion. Each watched the other with a fierce intensity, knowing that with two skilled knife fighters, it was a war of nerves more than anything eke. It was not like a duel with swords; one did not thrust and slash and parry. One waited for the other to make a mistake in judgment. Good knife fighters did not cut each other up, at least not very much. Forrester realized that he could not resort to any of the usual tricks, such as doing something totally unexpected-barking loudly and suddenly like a dog or spitting in his opponent’s face, then taking advantage of the one instant in which he was startled to move in and gut him. Nikolai would not be fooled like that. It would take a great deal of concentration to avoid being caught off guard or-off balance. The first one of them to make a mistake would lose and it would be over in an instant.
The only problem was that Forrester was losing his concentration. He kept staring into Drakov’s eyes, trying
