He wondered how Carmellini was coming on getting the safe open. Come on, Tommy!
Footsteps from within the building.
Here came a flashlight.
“Ah, Colonel, the lieutenant sent me to tell you that it will not be much longer, that the generator will start very soon.”
“Yes.”
“He is having difficulty, the mechanical condition is not as it should be.”
“I understand. I have faith in your lieutenant.”
The man went back down the hallway in the direction from whence he came.
More pacing.
At least three more minutes had passed when the lieutenant came down the hallway. The occasional flicker of passing headlights revealed him to be a large, rotund man.
“I am sorry, Colonel, but we cannot make the cursed thing run.”
“No harm done, if your guards stay alert. And I can always come back tomorrow for my errand, I suppose.”
“We will stay alert, sir. Our duty is our trust.”
“You and your men have done what you can, have you not?”
“We could awaken Colonel Santana, I suppose. Perhaps he knows more about the generator than any of us.”
Chance tried to keep his voice under control. “Colonel Santana is in the building, then?”
“Yes, sir. He came in about an hour ago. He went to his apartment on the top floor. I think he was investigating the incident of the two saboteurs that were killed near a high-voltage tower south of town.”
“A high-voltage tower? That sounds like attempted sabotage.”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“I hadn’t heard of that incident.”
“Enemies of the regime, sir. Apparently some of them were successful.”
“Santana is the very man I came to see,” Chance declared. “Still, I did not expect to find him asleep. I suggest you give the generator one last mighty heroic effort, and if you are unsuccessful, I shall awaken Colonel Santana.”
When the doorknob had turned as far as it would go, the door to Alejo Vargas’s office slowly opened. Tommy Carmellini was behind the door, still as a statue in the park, with a sap in his right hand and the silenced Ruger in his left.
Now a flashlight beam shot out, swung quickly around the room, hit the safe and swung away for an instant, then returned to the door of the safe. The apparatus Carmellini had attached to the door was quite plain in the small beam, as was the tangle of wires that ran to the computer.
Faster than he would have ever believed possible, the door smashed Tommy Carmellini in the face. The impact stunned him, threw him backward against the wall.
The man sprang into the room, swung something that smacked Carmellini in the skull and made him see stars.
He was falling, off-balance, the other man coming for him in a brutal, ferocious way, when he got the Ruger more or less pointed and began pulling the trigger as fast as he could. He could barely hear the pops.
He fell to the floor and his assailant leaped on him, began smashing him in the face with his fist, repeatedly.
Swinging his right hand with all his might, Carmellini hit the other man in the side of the head with the sap. And again.
The man was slumping, falling to the left.
Carmellini gathered his strength and smashed the man again, one more time, square in the head.
The man rolled onto the floor, slumped on his back.
Carmellini sat up, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Part of his face was numb, he was drooling from a mighty punch to the mouth.
He forced himself to his knees. He pocketed the sap, reached for the flashlight, which was lying on the floor still lit. He played the light on the face of his assailant.
Santana.
Oooh, damn!
He checked the pistol. He had fired at least five shots. A couple of the spent brass were lying near Santana, who had a bloody place on his chest, one on his neck. Hit twice, at least.
Maybe one of the little .22 bullets would kill him.
Maybe not.
Tommy Carmellini found to his surprise that he didn’t care one way or the other.
He put the pistol back in its holster, wiped his face with his shirt, and went back to the computer.
The combination was right there on the screen, all three numbers. The dial wasn’t moving.
He tried the handle, put some weight on it. It moved.
The safe was open!
He wiped his face on his sleeve, willed himself back to his task. First he stowed the computer and sensors and telescoping rod in his duffel bag. Then he opened the safe, examined its contents with Santana’s flashlight, then turned on his headband light.
Lots of papers, files, two shelves of them. The top shelf consisted of files on people, each file had a person’s name. These were the files he had come to find. He raked these into his duffel bag.
Ah, on the second shelf … files labeled with numbers. He looked inside one. Engineering drawings, possibly of a warhead …
He dumped everything that looked interesting into his duffel bag, including the stack of files on Vargas’s desk.
Oh, here was a file about supplies from a Miami laboratory supply house … one about susceptibility studies, lethality, vaccines … he stuffed all these in the bag, began checking another handful.
The hell with it! He would take everything. The files on the bottom shelf might prove as interesting as those on the top. The bag would be heavy, but he could lift it. He transferred the files to the bag as quickly as he could.
When he had all the files, he hoisted the bag experimentally. Eighty pounds, at least. Room for a few more things …
What else did Vargas keep in his safe? A small laptop computer. Well, he certainly didn’t need that anymore. Into the bag with it.
He was pawing through one of the side drawers when he sensed movement behind him.
As he turned Santana’s fist grazed his jaw — his turn had been just enough to save his life. The headband and light flew away, somewhere, the little beam flashing around crazily.
He groped for his sap, swung it in a roundhouse right and connected with bone.
Santana went sideways to the floor.
No time for this! The man is too dangerous!
He pulled out the Ruger, thumbed off the safety and was ready when Santana came off the floor again. The pistol coughed.
Santana’s momentum drove his body forward and he collapsed against Carmellini’s feet.
The American stepped around the body. He put the pistol away, stowed the headband light, zipped the duffel bag closed.
After a quick last look around, Tommy Carmellini went to the door, made sure it would lock behind him. He came back for the duffel bag, hoisted it to his left shoulder.
Out in the dark hall, he pulled the door shut, made sure it was locked, then walked quickly down the dark hallway for the stairs.
Tommy Carmellini held the Ruger down by his leg as he descended the stair and walked across the lobby toward the shadowy figure standing in the doorway.
As he walked the lights came on. Instantly an alarm sounded, loud enough to wake the dead.
He squinted against the light. That was Chance standing in the doorway.
“Into the car, quickly now,” Chance said. The alarms were wailing and every light in the building was on, with not a soul in sight. If they could be gone before the lieutenant and his men got back up here, he wouldn’t have to kill them — they couldn’t have seen his face very well in the darkness.
His watch read 2:04 A.M.
Chance stood in the doorway with euphoria flooding over him while Carmellini stowed the bag in the backseat of the car, got into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. Three long strides, he jerked open the passenger’s door and jumped inside, and Carmellini fed gas.