column was jointed for adjustment. It was a hellishly sensitive mechanism, far too sensitive to ignore the vibrations of a revving engine.
'The blast had driven the steel core of the steering column through Jean Daniel's middle, stripping its plastic casing as it went. The core had broken his lower ribs and torn through his stomach, and done a lot more damage along the way. Yet somehow it had missed severing his spine. He sat there — alive but barely — pinned to his seat with this fat cylindrical rod right through him; sat blinking at me, the steering wheel still gripped in his spastic hands.
''This is a different kind of rape, Jean Daniel,' I told him, watching as blood filled his mouth, and his eyes began to dim, and his twitching gradually stilled. 'My own special version.' And then, just before the bastard died. 'So now you know who hits the hardest
CHAPTER SIX More Of Jake's Story
Ben Trask, lan Goodly, and the old Lidesci were first away from the gutted, smouldering remains of the vampire enclave; Liz and Jake followed on behind Trask's commandeered transport in their own vehicle. They would be taking it easy, so it shouldn't be a problem that they'd lost the windshield. If they kept well back from Trask, the dust thrown up by his Land Rover wouldn't bother them. And the cool night air would be a definite bonus.
Just as they rolled onto the ramp cut in the steep face of the bluff, Jake slowed almost to a halt and looked back.
Apart from the smoke there was very little to show for the earlier activity. Several members of the team, dressed in fresh combat clothing but no longer armed or gas-masked, were hammering sharp signposts into the stony earth. One such post carried a legend only just visible in moon-and starlight:
HEALTH HAZARD! TOXIC WASTE! KEEP OUT!
E-Branch took no chances.
'What next?' Jake jerked his head to indicate the scene of recent devastation. 'For this place, I mean?'
Liz shrugged. 'The mine's sealed, there are no life signs.
Tomorrow the sun will come up and scorch the bluff clean.
Maybe they'll bulldoze the surface and dynamite the ramp, eventually. But there's no real hurry now. The main man was Bruce Trennier, as yet only a lieutenant but a would-be Lord.
If he had got away…' Again her shrug. 'Tomorrow they'd be back to tracking him down again. As it is, the operation was a complete success.'
'And this was the first time you've seen this kind of action?'
Jake slipped the 'Rover into third, let gravity draw them down the dusty ramp. 'How come you know so much more about this stuff than I do?'
Liz tossed her hair back. 'I've had a little time to study what they do — the Branch, I mean — and I'm 'aware' of my own talent, which makes their talents so much more acceptable.
Once you begin to realize that all the weird stuff is real, it's not so difficult to believe the weirdest stuff of all.'
But Jake only wondered, And that's a good, thing— to actually believe in all ofthisPEut still it was hard to deny his own five senses. Assuming they were his own, of course.
Down on the level, he turned onto the old road. A quarter-mile ahead, Trask's tail lights glowed red. 'I still can't accept that we were simply thrown in at the deep end,' Jake said.
'It was a test, as Trask told you,' Liz answered. 'I guess he knew that once we'd actually experienced it, gone up against the plague itself… well, that we really would accept it.' 'So why don't I?' Jake wanted to know. For a while she was silent, letting the wind blow her hair back, breathing the night air. Then she said, 'Jake, about your story tonight, in the Ops Room. There are terrible experiences, and there are terrible experiences. There are monsters and monsters, and I don't know which ones are the worst. But your life has been one of extremes. Maybe if mine had been messed with as much as yours, I'd start to wonder what was real, too. But this talent of yours, that's really something else. I mean, what you did tonight was—'
'—Wasn't me!' he said sharply, cutting her off. And with a shake of his head: 'I can't explain it any better than that.'
'Try,' she said. 'If we are to be partners, surely you can try? Look, this isn't something I suggest lightly — the Branch has its own internal code of conduct for espers, telepaths, empaths and such — but if you'll just let your thoughts flow free, I'll…'
'You'll what?' he looked at her. 'Read my mind? See if I'm as messed up as you suspect? Well, I probably am. Probably have been ever since… since Natasha died. The way she died.' Then he sighed and relaxed a little. 'On the other hand you could be right. My life las been a mess, and fate seems bent on screwing me around more than my fair share. So is it any wonder I have a problem sorting out what's real from what's fantasy? And as for E- Branch,' Jake shook his head wonderingly. 'Gadgets and ghosts — yeah!'
'And they want you for one of their gadgets/ she said.
'Huh!' he answered. 'Maybe one of their ghosts, if things had gone wrong tonight!'
'You've changed the subject,' Liz accused. 'Look, back in the Ops Room you started to tell your story. A good start, but you didn't nearly tell it all. Now me, I'm a hell of a listener. And right now, right here, there's just the two of us.'
'Oh really?' he said. 'A good listener — and bloodthirsty with it? Like one of those things we destroyed tonight?'
'That's not fair,' Liz answered. 'And that's not the part that interests me.' She gave a little shudder. 'I mean, I know you killed all of those men—'
'No, not all of them,' Jake said, coldly. 'Castellano and one other, they've still got it coming.'
'—And that your methods were… extreme, but that's not what I'm talking about. I've heard Ben Trask going on about the way you use what he calls the Mobius Route. That's your talent, right, Jake? It's how you moved us to safety back at the lair.'
He nodded, growled, 'And that's what I keep trying to tell you. It's not mine! It's like — I don't know — somebody else?
Someone who gets into my head, anyway. Someone who's living in there like a bloody squatter. Trask keeps mentioning this Harry Keogh. Well who is this Keogh? Some kind of telepath? And if so why is he so damned keen to mess with my mind? Why not pick on someone else, someone more receptive. No, I can't see it. Maybe it's a part of me that this me — I mean the real me — doesn't recognize. Like I'm a… a split personality or something? God, maybe I really am crazy!' He banged on the steering wheel with the flats of his hands, stamped his feet and set the Landrover to swerving.
Liz gave him time to cool down, then said, 'Jake, how can I get through to you? This isn't just for me, nor even for Ben Trask or his people; it's mainly for you. I wish you'd tell me about it: how you escaped from jail and all, and ended up with E-Branch. I know it happened, but not how it happened. So what do you say? Will you tell me?'
And he knew she wouldn't let it go until he did…
'I got sloppy,' Jake began. 'When I killed the third and last but one of Castellano's men — of the men who had been present at the villa that night — it was a sloppy job. A case of familiarity breeding contempt?' Glancing at Liz, he shook his head. 'I would really hate to think so; hate to admit that I was getting used to it. But who can say? Maybe I was at that.
'Anyway, he was an Italian and I killed him in Italy. And I got caught there, too. Maybe they were waiting for me. After all, I had been working down a list, like a serial killer, you know? Of course, Castellano must by then have made the connection — must have figured out that this wasn't just another gang war — and it's possible he had tipped off the authorities, the police. When I thought it out, it was even possible he'd sent that last victim out of France to put distance between himself and me! If so, then I'd actually managed to get to the bastard — I'd worried him considerably — which felt very good. But in any case:
