With Wells leading the way they moved into the lower tier of the most expensive seats and headed down the wide steps. Below, only the court lights were on, as if a heated match were going on, with many dollars riding on men with unpronounceable names. Blaine could almost imagine the cheers and boos. It would take an army the size of a capacity crowd to get him out of this now.
A few seconds later an arm at each of his elbows guided him onto the smooth court surface and steered him toward the green front wall. The wall was made of granite and showed thousands of white splotches from the constant impacts of the rock-hard ball. Tonight something else had been added to its starkness.
A pair of manacles.
Wells stood back on the court floor as the handcuffs were removed from Blaine’s wrists and his arms shoved violently over his shoulders. The big man hung back as an unspoken warning: Subdue my men and you’ll still have me to deal with. Blaine let himself be moved. They shoved him backward and his boots clanged against the waist-high metal covering that indicated low shots to the audience with a similar clang when jai alai was in season. Blaine’s arms were stretched and his wrists locked in the manacles.
For the first time that night he felt totally defeated. He had no chance of escape now unless he was somehow able to squeeze his hands through the manacles at the right moment, tearing flesh along the way. But he doubted he’d ever get a chance even for this dubious pleasure; Wells didn’t intend to take his eyes off him.
“Why does your boss need two armies?” Blaine asked as they faced each other from twenty yards apart. His voice echoed metallically.
“You have put the pieces together well,” Wells told him, his face trying for a grin. “Now you will tell me who you have met along the way who has been of service to you.”
“Why does your boss need two armies?” Blaine repeated.
“Tell me the trail you have followed.”
“I work alone. You should remember that from ’Nam. Except for the Indian, of course.”
Half of Wells’s face reddened. “We know you were in Paris. Who else are you working with? Who else have you alerted?”
“You mentioned abort to the troops at the airfield tonight,” Blaine persisted. “Abort what?”
“Why make things so difficult for yourself, McCracken?”
“Two armies, Wells. What does Krayman need two armies for? Sahhan’s troops make perfect sense, though their connection with Krayman escapes me. But why the mercenaries? They don’t fit.”
The big man just looked at him.
“Unless the plan is to have them divide the country up equally, in which case—” Blaine suddenly realized the truth. “Krayman hired the mercenaries to destroy Sahhan’s troops. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Wells’s silence provided an acknowledgment.
“Why?” Blaine asked him.
“You tell me.”
“Sahhan’s people surprise the country with their Christmas Eve strike, wreaking chaos everywhere, financed by Krayman. Then the mercenaries move in to save the day and restore reasonable order, also financed by Krayman. It still doesn’t make sense.”
“Because there’s something you’re missing,” Wells taunted him. “Something you’ll die without knowing.”
“Since I’m going to die anyway, why not tell me?”
“I’ve never gone in for melodrama and, besides, such important information would be wasted on a corpse.” Wells paused. “I’ll ask you one last time: where have you been and who have you seen since leaving the hospital?”
McCracken clenched his teeth and looked at him.
Wells turned away and nodded toward the players’ entrance onto the court. A man wearing a black practice shirt strolled out and tied a wicker cesta basket around his hand as he twisted his shoulders to loosen up.
“Are you familiar at all with jai alai, McCracken?”
“I’ve lost my share of money.”
“I was speaking of the physical aspects,” Wells said. With that the player whipped his arm around and a white blur sped out from his cesta, smashing into the front wall with a crack ten feet to Blaine’s right. “The ball is called a pelota. It’s made of goatskin and has been known to travel at speeds exceeding one hundred eighty miles per hour.” The player retrieved the ball and sent it whipping out again, this time smacking ten feet to Blaine’s left. “This man’s name is Arruzi,” Wells continued. “He is known at the fronton not so much for speed as for accuracy.”
Arruzi fired a shot from mid-court, scooped up the ball deftly on one bounce, and fired another. Both cracked home five feet from Blaine’s head. His ears hurt from the sound. Arruzi was juggling the pelota about in his cesta.
“Impact from a rock-hard ball at that pace will crush bones beyond repair,” Wells told him. “The pain, I’d imagine, would be extreme. Do you have any idea, McCracken, how many different targets the human body can be made into?”
Arruzi fired again, low this time, a yard from Blaine’s right leg. The ball banged against the metal.
“Tell me who you’ve reached, McCracken. Tell me who else knows anything about Christmas Eve, Sahhan, and San Melas.”
Blaine feigned deep thought. “Key-wheel the seven in a trifecta and give me the four and one under it.”
Wells nodded to Arruzi. The player whipped the pelota out sidearm on the forehand side. It cracked into the wall no more than a foot over Blaine’s head.
“Impact there would kill you,” Wells reported. “But we can’t have that, can we? A few broken bones are in order first. After all the trouble you’ve caused us, you certainly deserve them.”
“All right,” said Blaine, “just give me the five on top in the Daily Double.”
Arruzi fired again, the white blur seeming to come straight at Blaine’s eyes, only to curve away and smack the wall six inches under his right arm.
“My patience is growing thin, McCracken,” said Wells. “You are asking a lot of Arruzi’s aim. He could make a misjudgment at any time and strike you before I am ready for him to.”
The pelota whirled at him again, this time under his left arm. Blaine flinched involuntarily and rose to his toes to stretch farther away from it. His heart thudded against his chest.
“Who have you reached, McCracken?”
“Okay, just give me a four-two quinella.”
“I think a sample is in order. …”
Arruzi unwound his arm more slowly. The pelota fluttered out, its motion clear instead of blurred, coming in low and straight. Blaine braced and squeezed his eyes closed.
Impact would have doubled him over to the floor if he’d been able to fall. The slow-moving ball smashed into his stomach with a force greater than any he’d ever felt. He’d been stabbed once in the abdomen and that was the only sensation he could liken it to. His breath escaped in a rush and his chest heaved. He tried to inhale, but there was no air to grab, just a raging pain in his stomach as if a burning football were wedged inside. He kept heaving.
The pelota rolled out between a pair of red lines used to denote legal serves, and Arruzi snatched it up in his cesta.
“That was perhaps forty miles per hour,” Wells noted.
“Impact against a rib even at that speed would lead to splintering, and perhaps a vital organ would be pierced. At a hundred and twenty miles per hour, well, the effects would be similar to jumping off a five-story building.” Blaine could tell the big man was enjoying this. There had never been any expectation that he’d talk, or that he’d have anything meaningful to say even if he did. This whole scene was being played out just for Wells’s sadistic pleasure.