'Mr Trask,' he shouted. 'Up there where the road zig-zags. I can take him out as he rounds that last bend. The range isn't too much, maybe five hundred yards, and this weapon is lethally accurate to fifteen hundred. That's to assume a stationary target, of course. But I'm qualified with this gun and won't miss. Once he's over that ridge, though, he's gone with the wind. You have maybe thirty seconds to think it over.'
Trask thought it over. He knew he was right — but what if he was wrong? What if the spidery man was an innocent? But then again, why had he taken off like that? And the look on his face — probably shock as he'd realized he was face to face with his master's enemy. In which case he'd be on his way to make report to Malinari even now. But if Trask was wrong… how to balance one life against the security of a world?
The man with the sniperscope yelled, 'He'll be coming into view any time now!'
And Trask thought: The die is cast. We've got Nephran Malinari trapped up there. He can't come out until sundown, and Lan Goodly has forecast shit and hellfirefor tonight, the night of the full moon. So what difference does this make one way or the other?
What was it that the precog was always saying — something about the future being as immutable as the past? 'What will be has been,' and all that? Yes, that was it… but it was always coupled with, 'There's no way of telling how it will be, that's all…'
Trask started towards the marksman's position, and in his mind's eye he saw the knuckle of the man's finger turning white on the trigger. As if that were some kind of invocation, the marksman called out, 'I have him in my sights now, Mr Trask.'
There was no time left, and Trask skidded to a halt shouting, 'Do it! Take him out!' But:
'Skit!' said the other. His finger went slack on the trigger, and beads of sweat sprang into being on his forehead. Letting his weapon slump, he said, 'Cars out of Xanadu, a fucking convoy! They were in my way, shielding him. Ordinary civilians. No way I was going to risk firing on them.'
Trask had been holding his breath. Now he let it out in a long 'Phew!3 and then said, 'Take it easy. It isn't your fault, and it wasn't meant to be. The future can be like that.'
'What?' said the other, relieved but frowning. 'Some kind of fatalism?'
'Forget it,' Trask told him. 'But tonight, if you see that car or its driver in the resort, then you can fire on them with all you've got. And ditto should they try to come back down out of there.'
Then it was time for a final word with Bygraves and Chung, before the downhill traffic got too heavy. Even now the thunder of fleeing vehicles was becoming deafening.
'It looks like our little scheme is going to work,' Trask told Bygraves. 'Stay on it, and when the traffic thins out flag down a car. See if you can get some idea of how many people are still up there. As for that fellow who slipped through our fingers a moment ago: don't let it worry you. I'll do the worrying for all of us. And anyway, what can he tell Malinari other than what he's already figured out for himself— or will figure out just as soon as he pops up from his hidey-hole?'
Then he turned to Chung. 'David, stay tuned. If that mindsmog gets active, starts moving about, let us know at once. But whether it does or doesn't, and unless something really drastic happens, we'll probably be going in as planned. Okay?'
After the WO II and Chung had nodded their understanding, Trask got back into the car with Jimmy Harvey and drove to the side of the road. There he waited for a break in the stream of traffic, gave a final wave and set off downhill.
The vast bulk of the exodus was still to come…
And in a Xanadu that would soon be empty of entirely human life, there were just three and a half hours of life-giving, or wn-life threatening, natural light left. Then the sun would dip westward, the shadows of the mountain range would lengthen, and Xanadu's lights would blink on one by one, holding the darkness and the long night to follow at bay.
Or at least, that was how it would be under normal circumstances…
It was some eighty miles back to the safe house. Along the way Jimmy Harvey radioed ahead to give the people back there their ETA. He also passed a brief, coded message concerning Liz Merrick's watcher, and likewise passed on the locator David Chung's expert opinion that Lord Nephran Malinari was indeed in Xanadu. At which the team at the safe house held a final o-group, then went into action to ensure that everything would be fully operational and ready for Trask on his return.
Radio messages went out. With the exception of the Xanadu observation post, the various SAS units began converging on the flying club where Chopper Two had been checked over, refuelled, and was warming up for the long flight to Gladstone. The other machine stood idle for the moment; its flight to Xanadu would be of much shorter duration. Meanwhile, in the harbour at Gladstone, a fully-fuelled coastguard vessel and pilot had gone on immediate standby. And every man who formed a part of the team was fully aware of the details of the job in hand…
5:15 p.m. in Xanadu, and for more than three hours now private eye Garth Santeson had been trying to get to see his employer, Aristode Milan. But Santeson wasn't the only employee, and the two well-built young men who saw to Milan's privacy in daylight hours had been proving obstinate. For three hours and then some Santeson had prowled the casino and watched it emptying of punters, hostesses, croupiers and their overseers, and finally and most tellingly the tellers. For when the people who handled the cash moved out, then you knew for sure that something was about to go down.
Half an hour ago, turned back yet again by Milan's single-minded minders from his daytime sanctum sanctorum, Santeson had gone out from the almost deserted Pleasure Dome into the resort proper. By then the pools had been empty and the last cars were straggling out through the departure gate. The private investigator was no fool; he had long since found out what the alleged problem was, but he'd also made the connection between that and what he'd bumped into on the mountain approach road. And it was just too much of a coincidence. So how come Milan — who had definitely been on the alert for unfriendly visitors and suspicious activities for as long as Santeson had been with him — how come he wasn't up and about, checking things out for himself?
Or was he simply unaware that there was a problem…?
The trouble with Milan's goons was that they had insufficient grey matter between them to realize they should at least be doing something, if it was only to let their dodgy employer know what was happening here. This was Santeson's opinion, anyway, which seemed borne out by the dumb, unswerving obstinacy of the pair.
Normally he would have been able to contact Milan by telephone; the photophobic, night-dwelling boss of the resort would usually accept calls through the dark hours from four-thirty or five in the evening until nine in the morning, but not tonight And when Santeson had tried to impress something of the urgency of an audience with Milan upon his watchdogs — the fact that he must see him, that his information was of the utmost importance — it had seemed to him that they couldn't care less! He'd simply been informed of Mr Milan's instructions: that he wasn't to be disturbed under any circumstance until 6:30 at the earliest And that had been that. But now, with the time approaching 6:00 p.m. and the resort already dark, cooling under the swift onset of a Tropic of Capricorn night, Santeson was determined to have his way.
He had last tried to call Milan just ten minutes ago from the deserted booth at the monorail boarding stage close to the casino's
entrance… but the phone had only buzzed annoyingly at him, because by then there had been no receptionist to transfer the call! And now Santeson was very angry, for as the minutes had stretched into hours his sense of urgency — the anxious frustration of knowing that while something was definitely and dangerously out of kilter here, still there was nothing he could do about it — had increased in commensurate degree.
Garth Santeson had his own ideas as to what was happening or about to happen; it seemed obvious to him that the long arm of the law was reaching for Milan, and his oh-so-shady employer was about to get himself arrested (probably for skimming casino profits); in which case Santeson's monthly and more than adequate pay cheque would disappear with him. It therefore followed that the longer he kept the boss out of trouble, the better his chances of collecting his next cheque, due in a few days' time. Which in turn meant he must speak to Milan about the people he had seen on the approach road, at least two of which he'd recognized from the party that had flown in a few days ago in those paramilitary jetcopters.
Santeson knew where Milan was — his approximate location, anyway — but couldn't get to him. On any ordinary night Milan might be found in the casino for an hour or two, but much preferred the privacy of his rooms in the solar-panelled bubble on top of the dome (which on rare occasions he would also use during daylight hours).
