eyes. He roared with pain. She kept gouging, grinding the two fingers into his eyes. He dropped her, and she leaped back in the van and got behind the wheel.
The Magician jumped out, a lug wrench in hand, and hit the guard with a powerhouse swing. It made a flat smack as it smashed into the side of his head. The guard, temporarily blinded, shook off the blow as if it were a flea bite.
The Magician wound up and this time brought the steel wrench straight down on his head. The blow stung the Magician’s hands.
The guard staggered and started toward him.
‘Get in!’ Eliza yelled as she pulled the gear shift into first.
The Magician took his third strike.
The tire iron flipped out of his hands. This time the wrestler went down like a stricken buffalo.
He dove into the van and Eliza whipped it in a tight circle and fishtailed down the road.
When Chameleon jumped into Hooker’s office, he first stood flat against the wall, watching the general walk to his desk, lean over the champagne bucket and twist the bottle in the ice with the palms of his hands.
Then Chameleon moved slowly toward him. The old man looked up and glared at the maintenance man. ‘What is it, something wrong?’ he asked.
The man did not answer. He walked slowly across the dark room toward Hooker and stood in front of the desk.
He was unbuttoning his shirt.
The room was deadly still except for the ticking in Hooker’s chest. The clock began to run faster.
Tick... tick... tick ... tick,..
‘What are you doing? What’s the meaning of this?’ Still no answer. The man’s eyes were filled with hatred. He opened the shirt.
Tick, tick, tick, tick...
Hooker’s eyes bulged as he saw the tattoos. He was hypnotized by the spectre standing before him. His brain was fumbling with a half-dozen disparate thoughts.
‘Permit me, General. I am Chameleon,’ the man said. Ticktickticktick...
The clock in Hooker’s chest was frantic.
The ticking increased. It sounded like a Geiger counter. ‘Y-y-y-you’re too young,’ he croaked.
‘Capice Military Hospital, 23 September 1933,’ he said. It took a moment for the information to register.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The day I was born ... Father.’
The old man began to shake. The pacemaker went berserk. ‘You’re lying,’ he said. His voice was an echo squeezed from his chest.
From the map room he heard the muffled, staccato bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap of Garvey’s machine pistol, but he barely paid any attention.
‘Mother called me Molino, you called me Bobby. Would you like the date you murdered her in Australia? April —’
A tiny streak of fire crept across the ceiling. Hooker’s eyes fled to it and then flicked back.
Hooker’s ‘No-o-o-o!’ was as anguished as the death cry of a wolf.
The old man snatched open a desk drawer and pulled out a Colt .45. He held it in both hands and pointed it straight between Chameleon’s eyes.
The pacemaker was hammering.
And then it fell silent.
No more ticking.
What little blood was left in the general’s face drained away. His lips began to shake. His trigger finger trembled.
The door flew open and O’Hara burst in. He stopped cold. The general was pointing his pistol straight ahead. It was inches from Chameleon’s nose, and yet he made no move toward Hooker.
The gun hand wavered. The general’s eyes began to glaze over. He made one last effort to squeeze off the shot but there was no strength left.
‘You’re dead, General,’ Chameleon said.
Hooker’s eyes crossed and he plunged face down across the desk.
‘For God’s sake, let’s get outa here,’ O’Hara yelled. ‘All hell’s breaking loose.’
Behind him, half a dozen wires. crossed and exploded in fireworks, Coloured shards glittered in the air and turned the map room into a giant kaleidoscope.
Garvey stood in the middle of the room, staring in disbelief as the glass showered around him.
O’Hara and Chameleon ran for it.
