From somewhere close behind me, Alois said, “Why?”
“Because I am one of the men you want.” He said it as calmly as though he were announcing himself as the local gas man come to read the meter.
Alois came by me then. I pulled myself up a little and tried some real weight on my legs. I could feel the whole of my back wet and burning like hell.
Alois said, “Please come down from there and remove that object from the top of the case.”
Tin leg shook his head. “No. It stays there. And I advise you all to vacate this hallway immediately. This very useful artificial leg of mine is filled with high explosive which I have now timed to explode within about sixty seconds.” He looked straight at Alois, the sad, leonine face lined now with a dignity and nobility I wondered I’d never noticed before. Then he said, “You can order your guards to shoot me, of course. But it won’t help. The timing mechanism in the leg is such that any attempt now to pick it up will cause it to detonate.” He smiled then, a thin, wasted, bitter smile. “We are not going to allow a myth and a legend to be re-created. We suffered enough while this monster lived. Too many people suffered. Now the myth and the legend are to be destroyed. Without this,” he put a hand on the glass case, “you are nothing. Here is the power and here is the true evil. I advise you to move quickly. Your time is running out.”
Alois moved. It was like lightning. One moment he was standing watching the man, the next a hand flashed and the large dagger was whipped from his belt, and it seared through the air. He’d certainly been well trained in all the arts. The knife point took the man in the throat. He went down without a sound, except the clatter of his stick as it rolled across the steps of the dais.
Alois turned round and shouted, “Back, everyone! Back to the door.”
They moved, like a panic-struck flock of sheep, crashing and pushing through the chairs, heading for the doorway and the cover of the cloistered walk. I couldn’t move. I had a stall seat again, and was tied to it, and no one cared a damn for me. Not even Manston, cold-blooded, professional, cerebrating right up to the last moment, knowing that if he came to release me it would mark him as the other man and, who knew ...? that could still be dangerous if success should come out of the mad risk that was being taken now by Alois. It was clear what he intended to do. He was moving towards the glass case quickly. I heard the big hall doors open away to my right and the rush of feet, but I kept my eyes on Alois, waiting for the moment when I would jerk my head back behind the pillar and pray.
Alois moved quickly through the scattered chairs. But when he was free of them, and the catafalque only a couple of yards away from him – there was a shot.
I saw his body jerk and his left arm fly upwards. He spun half round, swayed, recovered himself and then kept moving on. Far up under the blue dome the shot echoes rolled and wickered like thunder. There was another shot and it must mave taken Alois in the side. He spun round like a top and dropped full length on the marble steps. Blood ran out through his fingers as he clutched at his side. The shots were coming from the grille high up in the dome. I remembered Howard Johnson leaning over me, his face wavering like running water in my doped dreams, and saying, “Bad luck, lover-boy – you really bought it. King-sized and gift-wrapped.” He was up there now, Hesseltod’s ladder hoisted from the lower roof for the final climb, to give him, first, a ringside seat at my doping, then to leave him free, when I had been carried away, to take the ·404; his orders as clear as Manston’s, and the other’s – trust no one, but destroy the myth for ever.
Alois crawled forward, reached blindly for the sides of the case and began to haul himself up.
Another shot came from the grille and this time Alois’s body jumped, spun and fell sideways down across the marble steps. For a moment I had a glimpse of a smashed face, of blond hair red with blood, and then I saw no more because the time was up.
The sixtieth second dropped from now into the past, and there was a roar like the heavens opening. The blue-lit cavern was sheeted with orange flame, and the shock wave beat at me and slammed me away and then back against the pillar and I went out, listening to the whistling, crackling, exploding fall of glass from the dome.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AND ALL THAT’S LEFT FOR ME
What did I learn from it? What did I lose? What did I gain? It’s not a long list.
A broken arm, right. The shock wave did that when it slammed me away from the pillar and then back again.
Some scars on my back which will always be partly there. Some other scars, too; around the heart, I suppose you could say, if you cared for whimsy. I don’t know what happened to Katerina. She went through the hall door and disappeared. All the people I’ve questioned since know nothing about her. The Vadarci pair went into the blue, too, with Katerina. But it could be that Manston and Sutcliffe have tabs on them and aren’t saying. A girl like Katerina will pop up again somewhere. My guess is
