"Hurricane! We can't win here. Not without killing them all. We must flee."
Through the haze of violence and rage that surrounded him, the big man somehow heard his friend's exhortation. With a mighty heave, he pitched the mass of bodies back through the gaping window. Then, just as quickly, he snatched Christy and Winterbourne out of the ruins and slung them onto his shoulders. "Molly girl! The door!"
Molly was already moving, galvanized into action, not by Hurricane's shout, but rather by what her father had said; the only way to avoid killing these poor souls was to flee. She threw open the front door, half expecting to find the rest of the people from the plane waiting there, but thankfully the way was clear. Hurley muscled past her, clearing the way like a charging bull, while Hobbs took her hand and led her along at a brisk jog.
But the fight was far from over.
Hurricane kept moving, down the porch steps, past the squirming heap of bodies piled in front of the shattered window and into the street. The car that had brought them was parked across the way but there was no sign of the driver from the Trevayne Society. Molly was immediately suspicious and she suspected Hurley was as well, but if their foes had set a trap for them, they would have to deal with it directly.
By the time she and Hobbs reached the street, the surviving intruders were up and moving again. The injuries they had sustained could not help but slow them down, but they were immune to pain or exhaustion; nothing would stop them from carrying out the orders of their master.
Then things got worse.
From half a block away, a pair of automobile headlights blazed to life, casting their beams straight down the center of street. There was a screech of tires as the unseen driver punched the accelerator pedal. Transfixed by the spears of illumination, Molly froze, just for an instant, but it was enough. Hobbs, still tightly gripping her hand, was unaware that she had stopped and as he continued forward he yanked her off her feet. She spilled headlong into the street, directly in the path of the onrushing car.
Hobbs nearly went down as well, but somehow managed to make catching himself look graceful. He danced back a step and scooped her up in his arms, but even he was not fast enough to recover the moment or two lost in her fall. Now it was only a question of whether the gang of attackers would reach them before or after the car ran them down.
But then, at the last instant, the headlights swung to the side and so did the front end of the car. There was another squeal of rubber on pavement, much closer and much louder, but not loud enough to hide the sound of bones crunching against metal. Bodies flew in all directions — some were propelled up the street, some were hurled into the air, up and over the top of the sedan and one went under.
Before Molly could fully grasp the enormity — the horror — of what she had just witnessed, the door of the car was thrown open. The man inside had a youthful, earnest face; but for his dark hair, she might have mistaken him for Dodge. "Get in!"
This time, both Hobbs and Hurricane did hesitate. Up until that moment, they understood every aspect of the situation, but the unexpected help from a stranger represented a complete unknown.
"Come on," urged the man. "There's more of them heading this way."
Hobbs was still searching the man's face for some sign of deception when Hurricane sprang into motion. "They've sabotaged our car," he explained to Hobbs, even as he opened the rear door of the idling car and heaved the inert forms of Winterbourne and Christy inside. "The driver's dead; neck broken."
That was enough for Hobbs. He set Molly down and steered her toward the open door. She didn't need his urging. Their young savior was alone in the car; if he did have some malign intent, she had no doubt that her father and Hurricane Hurley could deal with it. More than anything, she just wanted to get away from the scene of so much carnage. She slid in next to the driver and her father followed. She felt better immediately as the car door slammed shut.
"Go!" Hobbs ordered in his quiet but irresistible way.
The young man behind the wheel nodded and stomped down on the gas pedal. The car shuddered as one of the rear wheels rolled up and over something — Molly didn't want to think about what it might be — and picked up speed. In a matter of seconds, they were away.
Hobbs craned his head around to search for signs of pursuit.
"No need to worry," offered their rescuer. "They came in two cars. This is one of them and I cut the tires on the other. I think you're safe."
"Thanks to you." Hobbs' remark was almost sarcastic. "May I ask how you came to be involved in all of this?"
The man didn't seem at all offended by the priest's suspicious tone. "Just bad luck really. I was on my way home from the pub when those blokes pulled up. It looked like they were up to no good, so I hung back. They went for your friend waiting by the car first."
His voice became more subdued. "When he saw them, he waved his gun at them, but they didn't stop. He got a shot off, then they were on him… Nothing I could do to help him. Then they went for that flat. I guess you know what happened then."
Hobbs uttered a noncommittal grunt.
"We owe you our lives," Molly offered hastily. "Thank you."
The man returned a smile. "Just so long as you're on the side of the angels. You're Yanks, right?"
She nodded. "From New York."
"Sorry about how your holiday turned out. Should I find a constable for you?"
"I think you'd better take us to the hospital instead."
"No," Hobbs declared in a flat tone. "We can tend to our wounds on the plane. The sooner we're away, the safer we'll all be."
"You're not suggesting we take Reg and the old geezer along for the ride?" asked Hurricane from the back seat. "I suspect they might have an objection to being shanghaied off to India."
"We can put them off along the way. But right now, the safest place for them is with us."
"India?" The driver whistled. "You lot do get around."
Hobbs, perhaps realizing they had already revealed too much, quickly said, "It might be best for you to drop us off where we can get a taxi on to our final destination. And then I'd suggest you abandon this vehicle and forget about all of this."
"You'll get no argument from me." He then glanced at Molly. "Though I'm not bloody likely to forget riding to your rescue, Miss…?"
"Molly." She extended a hand to him. "And you are?"
The driver took her hand and touched it almost reverently to his lips. "Call me Ishmael."
CHAPTER 15 — LORD OF DESTRUCTION
The man whom Jocasta called Schadel, made only one detour as he fled the Outpost. He turned down the siding where the now defunct Float Car had been stashed and retrieved his thrall Burton, otherwise known as Captain Elliot Berlitz, formerly of Pan American Airlines. He directed the metallic sphere down and snatched up the bound pilot without even stopping, engulfing him the way a macrophage consumes an invading bacterium. He then steered back into the main passage and shot like a bullet over the heads of the soldiers that were cautiously advancing into the ice tunnel. Only when he was clear of the Outpost, with the vast expanse of Antarctica flashing beneath him, did he untie Berlitz.
"Get your map out," he directed the pilot, "and show me where we are."
Berlitz, a living automaton, complied without hesitation or enthusiasm. As soon as he got a fix on their position from the stars overhead, he pointed to a spot on the map and then lapsed into a waiting silence. Schadel scanned the chart, locating a specific set of latitude and longitude coordinates that he had memorized and then showed it to Berlitz. "What's the most direct route to this point?"