Mervin frantically wheeled on his computer.
Holz took a few cautious steps back.
Pendrake was jolted again. His head snapped back and smashed against the painted cinder-block wall of the lab. They all heard the solid crack of bone. Pendrake snapped forward once more. A smear of hair-mottled blood stained the whitewashed wall.
"I think he's going into shock!" Mervin said desperately.
"Are you getting everything down?" Holz asked, his voice growing excited. He ignored Mervin, concentrating on the man on the table.
"I can't break the connection!" The information was being drawn into Pendrake too quickly. He was absorbing the new data like a sponge. The speed was frightening. As Mervin watched in horror, he understood what was happening. Pendrake's brain was overloading.
"Mr. Holz, we have to call someone!" But even as he pounded uselessly on his keyboard, Mervin knew there was no one he could call who could possibly help.
"Leave that alone," Holz ordered, pointing at the keyboard.
"Mr. Holz!"
"Leave it!" Holz yelled, wheeling on Mervin. He had a wild look in his eyes. He spun back to Zach Pendrake.
The marketing man was twitching spastically, as if someone had dumped a carton of red ants down the back of his shirt. His gaze was distant. When his neck twisted from side to side, a maroon patch of thick, coagulating blood on the back of his head was revealed. But no matter how hard he jerked in every direction, the electrodes didn't come loose. The EKG
monitor continued to shriek a warning to those in the room, as if the pain Pendrake was feeling had somehow been transferred to the machine.
The steady high-pitched whine grew more intense inside Mervin's head. It rattled against his eardrums until he could nearly feel the power pouring through the electrodes himself. And when he couldn't bear the noise or the 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.