angry thrashing of the man on the gurney any longer, he did something totally uncharacteristic. He disobeyed a direct order.
Mervin stepped over to the examining table.
'Stop!' Holz barked.
But Mervin didn't listen.
Woodenly he reached for the pair of temple electrodes. His pudgy hand never got closer than a foot away.
Pendrake's hand shot out, faster than a cobra, faster than the pairs of binary numbers could be downloaded, faster than the human eye could perceive. It struck the young programmer squarely in the chest.
The fingers snapped like dried twigs against the solid sternum. No matter. The chest bone groaned in protest and collapsed inward.
A spray of blood erupted from the open chest cavity as shards of shattered bone pierced the heart. Several of Pendrake's own wrist bones shattered as the hand continued. Through the spine. Out the back, clutching air. Return.
Mervin looked down at his now open chest cavity as the arm withdrew. His mouth gulped, but no words came out. Only a small trickle of blood gur-gled from between his parted lips.
With nearly no sound, he fell to the floor. He didn't move again.
Pendrake didn't feel the pain of his shattered forearm. It was as nothing compared with the symphony of exquisite torture in his own mind. Though science had determined that the brain had no true pain sensors, Zachary H. Pendrake would have disputed that theory with anyone. Except for the fact that the syn-apses in his own brain were popping like flashbulbs at an old-fashioned Washington news conference.
His thoughts were roiling into a supernova. His spine was acid dipped and on fire.
And all at once, his mind exploded in a flash of pure, searing energy.
Pendrake sat bolt upright one last time and then dropped like a sack of wet cement to the floor of the lab. He landed atop Mervin's prone body. The two electrodes on his forehead and one from his chest were wrenched free in the fall. The EKG monitor spiked one last time and then leveled out in a single, steady line. The keen of the electronic device buzzed quietly in the otherwise silent room.
After a moment, Lothar Holz stepped gingerly over to the bodies. The marketing man continued to twitch occasionally. In one such move, the watch on his shattered wrist chipped a silver-dollar-sized chunk out of the concrete floor.
Holz glanced at his silent assistant, then at the EKG. Pendrake was still flatline. He was dead.
Holz placed his toe beneath the man's shoulders and flipped him over. Pendrake rolled off of Mervin and against the legs of the examining table. The last electrode popped loose.
His eyes were opened wide. Wider than they could have been if someone had grabbed onto both lids and pulled. The red-streaked white orbs bugged unnaturally from their sockets. What was also visible by its lack was that he had bitten his own tongue off in the excitement, his lips a red-ringed O of dismay and surprise.
'It's remarkable, wouldn't you agree?' Holz asked, grinning. He looked up at his assistant expectantly. His silent companion said not a word.
Holz sighed. 'We are close. Closer than we have been in many years,' he said quietly to himself. He straightened himself up.
'Von Breslau will be here soon. In the meantime, clean this mess up.' He waved a manicured hand at the bodies on the floor. Picking his way carefully through the carnage, Lothar Holz left the room.
12
The world was sound and fury, narrowed down, tele-scoped to a sense that the world might end—in that very spot, unless something was done...
The bomb had blown out the rear wall of the office.
Ernst, the torturer, had been struck by a piece of flying rock. He crawled, dazed, across the rubble-strewed floor of the interrogation cell.
Smith had remained alert in spite of days of in-humane treatment. Though weakened, his mind raced.
The cross beams and plaster ceiling of the room had been new additions. Smith spied glimpses of the stone ceiling through the newly formed holes. The heavy beam from which Smith dangled had been jarred loose in the explpsion. It was much lower than it had been, its end near the newly opened wall shattered by the blast. His toes now touched the floor.
Smith moved on tiptoe toward the open wall, slid-ing the rope along the beam as he moved. Every joint ached, every muscle protested.
From the floor, Ernst moaned.
The end of the beam was chewed, pulpy wood.
Smith lifted the looped end of the rope from around the beam's end.
His arms ached. Fortunately they had taken him down not half an hour before to eat. It was the only time during the day he was freed from his bonds. If it had been another six hours later, it would have taken much more time to restore the circulation to his arms. As it was, they felt leaden and unresponsive.
Ernst grunted from behind. Smith turned.
The big man was pushing himself up, using the wall for support.
There wasn't much time.
Smith scrambled over the debris to the interior of the cell. His heart racing in his chest, he found the torturer's bag, which had overturned in the explo-sion. A heavy steel pipe had spilled out and rested beside the battered case.
Ernst grunted again. Smith glanced up.
The torturer was more alert. He realized what was happening. Groggily he pushed himself away from the wall, lumbering over toward the escaping prisoner.
Smith curled his fingers around the pipe. It was cold in his grip. Ernst was nearly upon him.
Smith stood, wheeling. He swung the pipe like a batter trying to put one out of the park.
The pipe struck Ernst in the temple. The big man stopped in his tracks, dazed.
Smith swung again. Another crack. Ernst blinked once, hard, and fell to his knees.
Smith lashed out once more. Ernst was too far gone by now to feel the blow register. Shattered skull fragments were already lodged in his brain. The final blow forced them in farther.
Like some great primal beast that knows when its time has come, Ernst's eyes rolled back in his head.
The huge man fell forward onto his bag of torturer's tools. He didn't move again.
Smith quickly unholstered the man's side arm, tucking it in his belt. Captain Menk had left his greatcoat on a hook in the corner of the room. Smith snatched it up, pulling it on over his grimy clothes as he ducked out through the opening.
From all around came the sound of shouting, panicked voices and frantic milling around.
Smith ducked into the shadows behind the building, hiding away.
Plotting his next move. He knew that Captain Menk wouldn't rest until he was dead.
Smith had become the madman's prey once more.
Harold Smith awoke behind the wheel of the rented car.
For one frightening instant, he thought he was back on Usedom, but the thought soon fled. He was here, in the present. And the stakes were as high now as they had been then.
He checked his watch. He had slept for precisely eleven minutes.
Harold Smith removed his glasses and massaged his eyes with his fingertips. The same troubling thought that had passed through his mind for the past five hours resurfaced.
He should have shot Holz when he had the chance.
His gun had been in the desk drawer the entire time.
He could have ended this nightmare before it had even started.
It was a foolish recrimination, he knew. He had hoped that Remo would be able to take out Holz and his
