But Quantrill was wondering when Howell would go for his hands. The instant he felt the big bony fingers grope for his, Quantrill let go with his right hand, his left still clutching Howell's right sleeve, spinning the big man around. At the same instant Quantrill unscissored his legs, thrusting away from Howell with his knees so that the larger man spun faster. On land, Howell could have prevented this maneuver, but not while flailing in frictionless liquid darkness while his lungs ached.
Howell was prying back on Quantrill's ring finger when he felt that loose right hand grip his left, and then he felt the stunning impact of two bare heels in his face. He fired the chiller without much hope on full auto, felt the septum of his nose crumble under a second pounding of those pitiless heels, sensed the tingle in his skull spreading along his torso, and tried to disengage. It was not entirely panic; he could tell that his hands were no longer as strong as Quantrill's. The difference was air, air,
Quantrill let the chiller go; he knew better than to fire it, knew also that at least one round had struck him in the right pectoral after losing most of its punch in its passage through water. He felt Howell's hands growing lax, knew that he must keep pounding with his feet. His heel encountered Howell's chin, shattered the jaw; and Quantrill distinctly felt the quiver of Seth Howell's weakening body as the two collided with a piling.
With all but a few opponents, Quantrill might have given quarter. But Howell's flailing fist struck him above the still-healing head wound by chance, and the result was a half-second of hallucinatory rage.
Quantrill's enemy was a piece of Control's forebrain, a calculating monster, killer of Marbrye Sanger.
Quantrill placed his bare feet on Howell's torso and, without releasing the hand, pivoted completely around the axis of Howell's shoulder. He heard the explosive scream underwater.
He almost lost the jerking, pulsating body of Howell but broke the surface with the man's shirt in his grasp; whirled in search of enemies; grasped the catwalk with his free hand. When he hauled Howell to the surface as a possible shield, the shirt tore away. Howell still moved but breathed more water than air.
Nose torn half away, jaw a shapeless ruin, right arm free of its socket — Howell would lead no more death squads. Quantrill's last concern with Howell was in wrenching the signet ring from a dying finger; its garrote might come in handy. When he pulled himself up to the catwalk his enemy lay face down in the water, naked to the waist. Quantrill left him, racing crazily down the catwalk, scanning between pilings until he spotted the garbage bag.
From Howell's backward plunge until Quantrill emerged for breath, some twenty-five seconds elapsed — considering their combined knowledge of combat moves, something of a marathon. He had to swim for the bag and, hauling it up to the catwalk again, Quantrill saw something that sped his flashing hands. Its broad naked back and arms awash, head down, the body of Seth Howell had floated out into September sunshine.
'Howell, Cross; there he is,' sang a familiar baritone from somewhere above, beyond Quantrill's vision.
Quantrill snatched his H & K automatic, freed its safety, froze in place. He did not hear the chiller but saw Howell's body jump, submerge, roll into its back. Then Kent Ethridge's horrified, ' Howell, Christ almighty! Quantrill's down there already!'
Quantrill left his shoes and sprinted down the swaying wooden walk in search of an upward stair. He found one at the end, blocked by a steel gate with a padlock that no small-caliber handgun could mangle.
Above him in the gloom ran triangulation rods, bolted between pilings. Quantrill did not intend to swim for it, now that dozens might be watching.
As he passed the site of his duel, he wondered if Howell had taken a second stairway and then suddenly he located it, as a white-clad form came pelting down a shadowed stairwell in stockinged feet. It stopped at the first piling and disappeared — Ethridge, pausing to let his eyes adjust.
Far above, Quantrill heard shouts and hammering feet. In the stairwell, more heavy footfalls. A strange voice in Texan accents: 'All right commander, or whoever you are, that's enough! Come up here with your hands—', and then the customs man moved into view, and Quantrill heard the cough of Ethridge's chiller. The man spun on the stairs, grunted, scrambled upward cursing and moaning.
Quantrill waited in wonder, hidden by a piling. More shouts from above but no more rash heroes. A white naval jacket fell to the catwalk. Shakily, then, almost in a sob: 'This is for her, Quantrill — for Sanger. I know you're there, I can smell you. Come on! Mano-a-mano, you baby-raping bastard,' and almost crooning, begging: 'Just you and me.' Then finally an agonized scream: 'QUANTRILL!'
For Sanger? It had the ring of a vendetta; and poor Ethridge had never quit trying for her favor — not ever. Quantrill was tempted to reply but had better sense than to give his position away.
'Quantrill!' Sobbing outright, with no attempt at stealth. Almost as if Kent Ethridge was asking for a fast snuff. 'She was too good for you,' echoed under the pier. 'Maybe for me, too.
It was just possible, Quantrill thought, that Ethridge was truly whacked out. More probably running on Control's orders, a decoy to draw him out. But he was doing one hell of an imitation of a grief-crazed fool.
One hell of a gymnast, too. 'Spare me your problems, Cross; I'm going in alone,' said Ethridge in normal tones, then raised his voice: 'Try me, Quantrill! We can go out together.' Quantrill's eyes widened in astonishment as he saw Kent Ethridge soar into space.
A creak from the structural support, and Ethridge was swinging up and over. Not an easy shot — but Ethridge's chiller was snugged into its armpit nest, no immediate risk. The gymnast hurtled up, slipped, regained his balance, stood on a horizontal rod masked by another piling.
Quantrill felt gooseflesh. Whatever Control told Ethridge, they couldn't see that vast jungle gym under the pier, couldn't possibly know of his in sane risks: a parallel-bars routine in rotten lighting, diagonals crisscrossing his path, moisture everywhere. No, the crazy sonofabitch was really doing it on his own, daring Quantrill to reveal himself; hoping he could bring his chiller into play before he died.
A faint creak, and Ethridge flipped head downward, using diagonals this time, a clean lovely maneuver in a pike position to the next horizontal rod. Quantrill shifted again, still unseen; felt water trickle from the fresh magazine and blew into it without thinking.
Ethridge heard it. 'You're getting it in her memory,' he said. 'I wanted to be sure you knew.' Dead calm in the voice now.
'She got me out, Ethridge.' A part of Quantrill could not believe the rest of him could be so stupid as to speak. He went on doing it: 'That's why Control pulled her plug! Howell ordered it — and you just shot him. Thanks.'
'Murdering shit; you're lying.' Ethridge seemed to be moving nearer.
'Why d'you think I haven't bagged you already, Kent? Every time you shift position I get a clean shot.'
'Better take it, assbreath.'
Quantrill found the lie easy: 'She wanted to get you out too, Kent. She told me so, damn you.'
'Shut up. I see those wet footprints, Teddy. I know where you are.'
Another creak, and Quantrill flicked his head out to check. Ethridge pendulumed almost overhead, one hand missing a diagonal, and as the gymnast recovered he saw Quantrill's adder-quick draw at a range of less than five meters. For an instant they were face to face. There was no shot.
Then Ethridge flung himself away to the safety of another piling. He ducked from sight and Quantrill could hear him mutter, 'Christ Jesus; Christ Jesus,' over and over, at the knowledge that he had been spared certain death.
Quantrill: 'Now goddammit, will you believe me?'
Silence. Then shaky muffled breathing. Quantrill edged out until he could see an arm; a shoulder. Kent Ethridge leaned perfectly still against the piling, high up, his face in his hands. 'Kent.'
No response.
'Kent, why was it a crime for us to love the same woman? And why does one of us have to die for it?
Control is our target.'
A long sigh, a grunt. It could have been agreement.
'You know I had you back there. You goddam know it! But icing you is the last thing Sanger would've wanted. If you get your ticket punched, how can you help me hit Control?'
