IN THE MIDDLE of that long night, I heard Skidmore get up and go downstairs. Skidmore was a very light sleeper, and often rose several times during the night to go take a walk outside, maybe smoke a cigarette, maybe just to ruminate.
He went outside that night, under a full moon, and never came back.
I heard the single shot fired, and it woke me up from a dead sleep. I rushed downstairs, beating most of them outside, my gun drawn and ready. Out on the roadway near the building, Heydrich stood over Skidmore’s inert form. Heydrich held a PPK in his right hand, and there was a pool of dark blood forming under Skidmore’s body.
I gave Heydrich a hard look, and bent over Skid. It was too late. The shot had pierced his heart. There was no pulse. There were several others out there now, too, and now Kenji came out and looked darkly at the body on the gravel. She came over to Heydrich.
“What the hell happened here?” she said in a low voice.
Heydrich shrugged. I could see a smug look behind those hard eyes. He knew something, and I wondered what it was. “I accused this hireling of treason against the Council, and he pulled a gun and threatened me. I killed him.”
I rolled Skidmore over, and there was a revolver in his hand. The finger was not on the trigger.
“You put it there,” I said. “He didn’t come down here armed.”
Heydrich eyed me in a smug way. “I’m telling you. He challenged me with the revolver. I defended myself.”
Kenji was suddenly furious. “You goddam fool!” she hissed out at Heydrich. “You have resented the presence of these men from the moment they came with us. You killed Skidmore just to be rid of him! Have you gone crazy like the ones at Kauai?”
Heydrich smiled a taut, psychotic smile. “Perhaps you should ask your hireling Rainey about that. Maybe you should quiz him again about the massacre at Kauai.”
“What?” Kenji said darkly.
My stomach twisted up inside.
“I was listening to the radio again, just before Skidmore came down here,” Heydrich began slowly. “The police have issued a further statement about the shootings at Kauai. That report was the basis for my accusation of Skidmore. I told him I thought both he and Rainey were here to destroy the Council.”
My stomach twisted up even further. “What the hell are you saying, Heydrich? Spit it out, if you have something to say.”
He grinned at me. “Yes, I have something to say, Rainey. The police say there were six people at that shooting, not just five, as you told us. They found the footprints of a sixth person, a man.”
I felt a cold, clammy hand grab at my gut.
“They say the footprints were of boots. You wear boots, Rainey.” He pointed at the heavy shoes I was wearing at that moment. I looked down at them, and so did everyone else, including Kenji.
Kenji looked up at me, and I met her quizzical look.
“They probably are my prints out there on Kauai,” I said, hoping to sound casual. “But only a paranoid bastard like you would try to make something of that, Heydrich. The police don’t know I was there before the killings, but you do. Of course my prints would be there, I was out there with them for a few minutes, setting up the firing range, before Night Stick sent me into town. But I left before any trouble broke out among them.”
There were a lot of hard, silent looks around me.
“I told you we should have killed them both,” the big Hawaiian said to Kenji.
Kenji turned to Heydrich. “Did the report say whether the prints appeared to involve the maker of them in the action?”
Heydrich arched his light brows. “Not in so many words. But I am certain that if we could find a way to check it out, we would find that Rainey was there, and that he was involved in the shooting. There is no doubt in my mind.”
“I wouldn’t expect there to be,” I said with sarcasm.
But Heydrich had made an impression on all of them, including Kenji. She now studied my face for a very long moment before speaking again.
“Rainey, this puts a different light on all that’s gone before.”
I put on a hurt look. “Oh, Christ, Kenji! Are you going to start listening to this goddam crazy? He’s been trying to find a reason to get rid of Skidmore and me from the first, you know that. Now he took this excuse to murder Skid in cold blood.”
“Maybe,” Kenji said. “But I don’t think he made up the police report. That’s too easy to check on, Rainey.”
“I told you. My prints should have been there. How the hell does that implicate me in the shooting? How does it contradict my story? If you want to, I’ll take you or any one of you to Kauai and show you that the prints of mine there don’t involve me in what happened.” I was saying anything I could think of, to keep from being killed there on the spot.
“There isn’t time for that now, Rainey,” Kenji said soberly. She wanted to believe me, but she couldn’t, now. “The police would still have people there.”
“I rid us of one of them,” Heydrich said coldly. “Now let me get rid of the other one.”
“Listen to the German,” the same big Hawaiian said.
Even Kanaka was against me now. “We can’t take any chances at this point,” he said.
“You’re damned right we can’t, man,” Huhu said rather heatedly. He turned to Kenji. “We can’t take him with us to the reservoir.”
Kenji nodded. “I know.”
“Then there is only one thing left,” Heydrich urged her.
Kenji gave him a look. “The Council will go on long past this mission, all being well. There will be time then to look into this matter closely. It could be that Rainey is telling the truth. If so, he will be a continuing asset to the cause. If we kill him now, we can’t undo it later.”
“Oh, shit,” Heydrich said in disgust. “You are letting your hot pants get in the way of your judgment again, Kenji.”
I had never seen real anger in Kenji’s face, but it was there now. She came and slapped Heydrich hard across the cheek, and he was surprised and stunned by it. The sound of her hand against his flesh cracked loudly in the night.
“Watch your place, damn you!” she hissed at him.
“Do you deny that you screwed him?” Heydrich replied hotly to her. “You think I don’t know you’re screwing him?”
Huhu looked toward Kenji somberly. One of the swarthy Eurasians grunted out a small laugh in his throat.
“I don’t have to deny anything to you, goddam it!” Kenji shouted into Heydrich’s face.
Huhu came up close to Heydrich, a pistol in hand. “Kenji is boss here, Gunther. Don’t challenge her. Not as long as Kanaka and I are around.”
Kanaka caught Huhu’s eye and nodded. I watched the whole thing with interest. Heydrich had gone too far, and helped me without wanting to. His stupidity was my ally.
Heydrich glanced at Huhu’s gun. “I challenge nothing and nobody,” he said more quietly. “I merely ask that we make our decision about Rainey based on the facts.”
“We don’t know the facts,” Kenji said harshly to him. She pointed toward the body of Skidmore. “We don’t really know what happened here, only what you told us. You may have killed a valuable member of the Council needlessly, a soldier we needed in the fight.”
Huhu and Kanaka and the others turned to study Heydrich’s face. It was obvious that Kenji’s judgment bore considerable weight with them. She had not been chosen leader of the Red Hots casually.
“I told you how it was,” Heydrich answered.
“Yes, you told us,” Kenji said. “And there is nobody to say no to your version. But it’s you that may have used bad judgment.” She turned to me. “Rainey, you can’t go to Heiau.”
That was a bitter pill to swallow. I shrugged. “I see your position, Kenji. But you need me there, you really do.”
“I know. But this has to be resolved. You’ll go ahead and help us make preparations later today, after breakfast. But you’ll stay here when we leave.”
“You’d leave him here alone?” Heydrich said in dismay.
Kenji turned a cold look at him. “No, you’ll be with him,” she said.
“What?” Heydrich said loudly.
“You’re not one of the better shots in the group, anyway,” Kenji told him. “You’ll stay to guard him, since he’ll be under house arrest until this thing is cleared.”
“I’ll be damned if I will!” Heydrich yelled.
Kenji held his angry look with a cool one. “You will,” she said.
There was a lot of tension there. In the eastern sky, a dull light was gathering. Heydrich looked at me, and back at Kenji. He looked at me again, and his face changed. He took a deep breath. “All right. If that’s the way you want it.”
I thought I knew what that resolve meant, that easy giving in. Heydrich had made up his mind, in that moment, to dispose of me while the others were gone. There would be little Kenji could do, after the fact. Especially if he had a halfway reasonable story to tell her, based on my attempted escape.
“If he stays with me, he will be restrained, though,” Heydrich added firmly.
Kenji shrugged. “If you wish, Gunther.” Speaking to him as if he were an unruly child.
That was the end of that little death scene. I helped bury Skidmore out behind the building, after the others had had breakfast. I wasn’t hungry. I was thinking of the many ways a merc can die, and the endless list of places where his body may find final rest. Through much of history, professional soldiers who gave their lives in the pursuit of their professions were accorded military honors and given great funerals with flowers strewn before the hearse. Not so in the twentieth century. In this age of a different morality, soldiering for money was considered dishonorable, and most mercs were buried in unmarked graves. So much for the era of enlightenment.
That entire day was spent in checking out equipment and weaponry, and one of the Squad C Hawaiians was assigned to keep a watch over me. I thought of trying an escape, but there was little opportunity. Anyway, I would have had the whole group after me. It wasn’t the right time.
Heydrich threw small glances at me all day, but in a different way from before. He had something in mind for me, there was little doubt of it. And I had to face the fact that there might be no way for me to prevent his killing me in cold blood, the same way he had killed Skidmore. It was a sobering thought.
That night there was a heavy excitement in the air there at Council headquarters. Kenji reported that she had attempted to recruit a couple more people from the regular ranks of the HLA, over their short-wave radio, and not only had been refused, but had been advised that the HLA had voted to disavow any further actions of the Council, which had splintered off their organization. Kenji had reacted angrily, and that added to the tension there.
My head was spinning with the complexity of my situation. If I was unable to prevent the Heiau thing, I would undoubtedly be tied to the Council forever in the minds of the authorities, even if Captain Bridges died in the ensuing assault of the city by virus. So even if I somehow managed to escape Heydrich’s wrath, I would be a dead-or-alive fugitive with a price on my head, despite my best efforts to destroy the Council.
My only hope was to escape Heydrich after the others had gone, but not long after, because I would have to follow them to the reservoir and try to abort their attack there.
When they went to bed that night, Heydrich ordered me tied up. I objected, but Kenji went along with him. My wrists and ankles were bound, and I had to try to sleep like that. At three a.m. they rose and piled themselves and their weapons into the headquarters vehicles and left, without me and Heydrich. At a private dock they would board a boat and take it to Oahu, landing as close to the reservoir as possible. They had had a cannister of the deadly virus, called meningus omegus, delivered to them before my arrival back at Kauai. The Blue Death, they were calling it. Once they introduced that into the water at the reservoir, the whole damned city of Honolulu was condemned to death. Oh, there would be survivors, but not many. As soon as people starting getting up that morning and taking that first drink of water, it would begin. Or cooking their first oatmeal, or taking their first shower. It would be horrible.
The bad part was, the attack on the reservoir would probably succeed, with the arms the Council had with them. The only thing standing between the death of Honolulu and continued life for the city was me. And I was bound and at the mercy of a goddam lunatic.
Heydrich had risen with the others. The sounds of the vehicles were gone now, and it was just Heydrich and me there in the store building that served as headquarters. All the lights downstairs were on. I was tied up on a pallet on the floor of a small office room just off the main store room, where I could now hear Heydrich rummaging about in there for something. Probably for a weapon to kill me with, I thought. I tested the rope on my wrists, and it was snug. The same on my ankles. One of the Hawaiians had bound me, and he knew what he was doing. My hands were swollen from lack of circulation. That was bad, because it made them stiff and clumsy.
I strained against the wrist rope, and it held fast. I breathed heavily from the effort, and from tension.
Heydrich came into the room.
He was grinning down at me, where I sat upright on the pallet. He was stripped to the waist, and he was very muscular. He took pride in his physique, one of these guys that loved to flex muscles. I was relieved to see he was not carrying a gun.
“Well. The prisoner is wide awake,” he grinned.
I did not miss the reference to me as a prisoner. “Why don’t you untie me, Heydrich?” I said. “You and I’ll have breakfast together.”
The grin widened. “Let’s be friends, heh, Rainey?”
“Why not?” I said. “Since we have to spend this time together, we might as well try to get along.”
“Don’t try to bullshit me, Rainey,” he said, the grin disappearing. “You want to kill me. If I give you the chance, you will.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Heydrich.”
“You came here to kill all of us,” he said, getting serious now. “You have succeeded in killing two of our squads, and nobody seems to want to believe that but me.”
He had me nailed. His dislike of me made him see the situation clearly. “Don’t be crazy, Heydrich. What the hell is my motive?”
“Who knows? Maybe the police are hiring mercenaries these days. Maybe you hate Hawaiians. I don’t have to know your motives. I know what you’re up to, that’s enough.”
“You’re wrong,” I lied. I saw the look in his eyes, and knew for certain he intended to get rid of me while Kenji was gone.
The grin returned. “You realize I have no choice. You’ve got Kenji under your spell. So it’s up to me.”
I waited to hear it.
“I’ll have to kill you, Rainey. Before you kill me. And the rest of us.”
“You’re talking crazy, Heydrich. Kenji will never put up with your murdering me. Like you did Skidmore.”
That ugly grin was back. “Yes, I killed your friend. He was in it with you. But I would have killed him, anyway. That bastard made my blood boil.”
“That’s really why you want to kill me, Heydrich. Not because I’m a threat to the group, or you. Because you dislike me. Kenji will see right through it.”
“I don’t give a damn what she sees or doesn’t see!” he scowled. “Somebody has to take control of this thing, and it has fallen on me to do so.”
“You hurt me, you may be signing your own death warrant,” I argued. At least my hands were tied out in front of me, where I could see them. That was a small advantage. But I could think of no way to get free before this lunatic killed me.
The grin returned, and I began hating it. “How would you like to go, mercenary soldier? A shot in the head, perhaps? Or maybe that would be too easy. A blast from an AK-47? That might be more appropriate. He who lives by the Kalashnikov shall die by one, heh?”
I grunted. “You can’t do it that way, Heydrich. Not without untying me. You’re going to try to make it look like I got free and attacked you. Right?”
His face went blank for a moment, as if he hadn’t thought it through yet. “Maybe,” he finally said. “Maybe, Rainey. But I can untie you afterwards, and place you in any position I wish. I can create any death scene that pops into my head.”
“Don’t get too clever, Heydrich. Kenji is no dummy.” I glanced around me, and saw it. There on the floor in the corner was a table knife that one of the Eurasians had cut up an apple with before sacking out. It had a serrated edge, like a steak knife, and I was sure it would cut rope. I quickly looked away from the knife, where it hid in the shadow of a straight chair.
Heydrich had turned away at the sound of a night bird outside, and had missed my looking around. He turned back now. “Well, let’s see how clever I am,” he said. “The night is waning, Rainey. I think I will get this over with. What do you think? You don’t want me to keep you in suspense any longer, do you?”
“Go to hell, Heydrich,” I said.
The grin again, and he started out of the room. “Let’s go find an appropriate execution for you, Rainey. Let’s get on with this.”
Suddenly he was gone. I heard him walking through the big room to the one in back of the building, where the weapons were kept. He was moving about in there as I inch-crawled along toward the corner where the knife lay. I knew I had only moments. Heydrich was not going to waste any more time talking to me.
I grunted and sweated, and finally reached the knife. By turning over onto my side, I could grasp it in my bound hands. I bent double and put the blade to the rope on my ankles, and began cutting. The rope frayed, and loosened, and then cut apart. I kicked my legs free, and struggled to my feet, my hands still bound. I heard Heydrich coming back through the big room.
There was no more time. Keeping the knife in my bound hands, I ran across the small room to a window that faced the long porch outside. I threw myself at the closed window, and hit the glass and molding and crashed through it into the blackness outside.
Lying there on the dark porch, I heard an obscene exclamation hiss out from Heydrich’s throat. There was a sudden violent clattering of noise, and hot lead from a Kalashnikov spattered through the window I had just dived through, breaking more glass. It sprinkled on me as I struggled to my feet on the porch. To the left of the building, out about a hundred yards, there was a stand of dead gumbo limbo trees, and some undergrowth. I leapt over the porch railing and ran for the trees. Halfway there I heard Heydrich’s voice, crazy-sounding.
“I see you, Rainey! You can’t get away, damn you!”
There was another banging burst from the automatic gun, and dirt flew up around my feet and something tore at my trouser leg. Kenji had been right, Heydrich was not a great shot. But he might have a lot of chances to correct his aim.
I entered the dead trees and undergrowth just as a second burst of gunfire rang out, and this time Heydrich had raised his sights. Bullets chewed up the red bark of a tree beside me, and one sang past my right ear.
I ran into the trees. Turning, I could see Heydrich halfway there already. Things looked bad for me. But I had jungle warfare experience behind me, and Heydrich didn’t. Instead of continuing to run so he could see me and fire again, I quickly stepped behind a thick tree about thirty yards into the woods.
Heydrich came plunging into the trees like a wounded bull, the AK-47 out in front of him, his eyes wild. It was dark in there, and his eyes hadn’t adjusted yet. I had closed mine behind the tree, to make them adjust faster. One of the many tricks I had learned in the jungle.
“You’re dead, Rainey!” the hysterical voice came. I could already hear the beginnings of doubt in his certainty, though. He could not kill what he couldn’t see.
He let go with another loud blast that made my ears ring for a moment. The slugs chipped away at the tree where I hid. But I was sure he had no idea where I was. He came forward, stumbling over something. I grasped the table knife tightly in my bound hands. He came past the tree.
I stepped out right in front of him, and shoved the knife into his belly.
Heydrich’s eyes saucered into round moons as the cold steel penetrated him. The Kalashnikov banged out again, the muzzle aimed at the ground. I removed the knife, and plunged it in again, this time carefully under the floating ribs, up into the heart cavity.
Heydrich focused on me with disbelief on his square face. He opened his mouth as if to cuss me out, but no words came out. Instead, a spurt of thick blood squirted onto me, staining my tunic front. Then Heydrich collapsed to his knees, as if praying. From there he rolled onto his side and was dead.
I turned the knife inward, with Heydrich’s blood still on it, and cut the rope of my wrists. In a moment I was free. I plucked the still-smoking Kalashnikov from Heydrich’s stiffening fingers.
“You were right about me, Heydrich,” I said to the inert figure on the ground. “Maybe they’ll inscribe that on your tombstone, you sonofabitch.”
A moment later I was on my way to the old docks along the nearby shore, on foot.
The war wasn’t lost yet.