The bat arced back the other way, faster than Snake could have believed possible. He rolled in the direction of the blow, going to the sticky canvas, all pain wiped from his body in the mental rush to survive.
The big man was right on top of him. He tried to get to his feet, but the bat was there, right there! It connected hard on his shoulder, picking him off the ground and sending him flying against the ropes.
He went down hard, and the bat was there again, coming straight down. He rolled and the thing whapped the ground, shaking the whole ring.
“Are you sure he’s down here?” Brain asked nervously as they walked the dark hallway toward the storeroom.
Maggie put an arm on his back, patting-also pushing. “I heard them say so. Just relax, would you? This is the easy part.”
Maggie kept reassuring him, kept him pumped up. She was positive that this was their only way out and there was no chance that she was going to let Brain fag out on her. The muffled cheering barely reached them where they were, but it never left her hearing. It was Plissken they were yelling about. He was in there getting his head knocked off by Slag. Too bad. He would have been a tremendous help to them. Now they were going to have to do it all by themselves-if Brain would just hold together.
“I wish Snake was here,” he told her.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever beard you say that,” she responded, and smiled when he jerked his head to her. He smiled back, a nervous, frightened smile.
They came up to the storeroom door. Brain stopped and looked at it. Maggie reached out and knocked before he changed his mind.
The door opened, and Romero stuck his head out. He snarled with his pointy teeth, the skin on his skeletal face stretched tight as a drum head. He was wearing Cabbie’s hat, slightly tilted, to the side of his head.
“Where’d you get that?” Brain asked.
“Got it from Cabbie,” the man responded in a whisper voice. “Traded him.”
Brain was shifting his weight from foot to foot, pulling on the hem of his cloth jacket. “For what?” he asked.
Maggie pinched him on the back, trying to make him stand still. He was blowing the whole deal.
“What are you so nervous about?” Romero asked, his sunken eyes glaring.
“I gotta see the President,” Brain blurted out.
“Who says?”
“The Duke,” Brain said, nodding his head and looking around. He wouldn’t meet Romero’s eyes. Maggie reached a hand into her jacket and grasped the automatic.
“No, he doesn’t,” Romero answered, and his voice had gotten rough like sandpaper.
“I’ll tell him you said that,” Brain said with contrived self-righteousness. “Come on,” he snapped at Maggie and turned on his heel.
“Wait a minute,” Romero called after him.
Brain stopped, his back still to the man. Maggie looked up at him. He wiggled his eyebrows. She smiled, proud.
“Why?” Romero asked.
They turned back around. “He’s got something in his collar,” Brain said. “In the lining. The Duke wants it” They walked back to the man.
“What?” Romero asked, still blocking the doorway.
Brain shrugged. “Cyanide capsules,” he replied. “The Duke don’t want a dead President. Plissken told him about them.”
Reluctantly, eyes still wary, Romero opened the door. Maggie gave Brain a good shove and both of them were in right away. There were three other guards lounging around. The President sat like a lifeless mannequin in the corner.
“Cyanide?” Romero said, his voice climbing a hill.
Brain moved toward the President, taking a knife out of his jacket. Maggie moved away from the center of the room, hand still on the pistol, tightening.
“Might try to take it tomorrow,” Brain said.
The Gypsy put his hands on his hips. “Why would he do that?”
Brain got to the President and began messing with his collar. The man looked up at him, coming up out of a deep stupor. His eyes got wide when he saw the knife.
Maggie watched Romero, watched it all snap together in his mind. She eased the gun slowly out of her belt. Romero moved toward Brain.
“That’s just so much bull,” he said, putting a hand on Brain’s shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be in here, Brain…”
Brain flashed around with the knife, burying it to the hilt in Romero’s stomach. The man’s expression never changed. His face, already a deathshead, simply made that abstraction real. He sank slowly to the floor.
Maggie had the gun out and was firing before she even realized it. The room was small, the targets big. She blasted two of the guards down before they could even stand. The third got right up on her before the gun coughed again and took off his head.
She looked at Brain.
She smiled.
XXI
3:58:53, 52, 51…
Plissken never heard the bell, he was too busy rolling around on the bloody canvas, trying to stay alive. But Slag heard it, a recurring what-round-is-this nightmare.
The big man stopped immediately, like a trained seal, dropping his bat to the ground. He stomped over to his corner like a good little boy.
The Snake staggered to his feet, getting to the first vacant corner he saw. His body was one big welt. He was probably black and blue all over, but he couldn’t see beneath the blood that covered him from his tussle with the wet canvas.
Rolling his head around on his shoulders, he let his eye rove the crowd again. They were all yelling and sweating, getting warmed up, wagering for cans of tomato soup. Then he caught something, a glint.
A Gypsy with a red bandanna stood by the round ringer. He wore a medallion on a chain around his neck. Plissken blinked. The medallion looked familiar. It was the tracer that Hauk had given him.
The referee came back into the ring and collected the bats. He handed them to the red bandanna and got some others in their place. He went to them in turn, issuing one each: trash can lid and bat. These were bats plus. A long nail was jutting out of the end of each.
The crowd was on its feet, jumping with the lust and the excitement. Plissken put them out of his mind.
The radio was obstinate; it just wouldn’t answer. Hauk tightened the straps on his backpack and wished he was off asleep somewhere, curled up like a big dog in a sun spot.
But he wasn’t.
From habit he pulled the pearl-handled revolver out of its bed and snapped open the cylinder, checking the ammo. He flicked it closed just as Rehme came into the bunker.
“They’re ready,” the man said.
“Sure.”
“Is it go?”
Hauk looked at that damnable radio. It stared silently back at him. “Yeah,” he said finally, and let Rehme lead him out of the room.
Plissken heard the bell this time, listened closely to it since it could be the last one he’d ever hear.