“Like my little maze, Baron?” Sandler asked. “I hope you’re not afraid of the dark.”
Michael knew better than to answer. Sandler would key in on the sound of his voice. He felt along the walls, wincing as a razor came through the fabric and sliced his fingers. There it was! A narrow corridor-or, at least, what appeared to be a corridor. He moved into it and kept going with his hands up in front of him.
“I can’t figure you out, Baron!” Sandler said. The voice had moved; Sandler was coming through the maze. “I thought you’d break by now! Or maybe you have broken, and you’re lying huddled in a corner. Is that right?”
Michael came to another wall. The corridor turned to the right at an angle that grazed blades through his shirt and across the flesh of his shoulder.
“I know you’re terrified. Who wouldn’t be? You know, for me that’s the most thrilling part of the hunt: the terror in the eyes of an animal when it realizes there’s no way out. Oh, did I tell you I know the way through this maze? I built it, you see. The razors are a nice touch, don’t you think?”
Keep talking, Michael thought. The sound told him that Sandler was to his left, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet behind him. Michael went on, easing his way between the razors.
“I know you must be cut to pieces by now,” Sandler said. “You should be wearing leather gloves, like I am. One must always be prepared, Baron; that’s the mark of a true hunter.”
A wall blocked Michael’s way. He searched left and right for another passage. Sandler’s voice was getting closer.
“If you surrender, I’ll make it easy on you. All you have to say are three words: ‘I give up.’ I’ll make your death a quick one. Is that agreeable to you?”
Michael’s hands found the wall’s edge, to his left. The coat was in tatters around his fingers, the cloth damp with blood. He could feel his strength leaving him, his muscles weakening. His wounded leg was going numb. But the doorway out of this car had to be just ahead, no more than another fifteen feet. Its glass inset would also be painted black, he reasoned. So finding the door would be difficult. He moved along the left-slanting corridor, the car swaying as the train rounded a curve. The corridor straightened out. The smell of burning coal was stronger. The door must be close, he thought. Not much farther to go now…
He took two more steps, and heard the metallic ping of a trip wire snapping.
Even as Michael flung himself forward to the floor, a row of flashbulbs exploded in his face. The light seared his eyes, made blue pinwheels whirl in his brain. He lay dazed, his balance and equilibrium destroyed, his eyes prickling with pain as if they, too, had been sliced.
“Oh, you almost got out, didn’t you?” Sandler’s voice came from about twelve feet behind and to the right. “Just wait for me, Baron. I’ll be there shortly.”
Michael’s eyes were full of blue fire. He crawled out of the middle of the corridor, and lay with his back pressed up against a blade-covered wall. Sandler was striding toward him; he could hear the man’s boots on the floorboards. He knew the hunter would expect to find him totally helpless, writhing in pain with his hands clawing at his eyes. He turned his body so his arms were unhindered, and he pulled his hands out of the shredded coat.
“Say something, Baron,” Sandler urged. “So I can find you and put you out of your misery.”
Michael remained silent, lying on his side. He listened to the noise of Sandler’s footsteps, getting closer. Come on, damn you! Michael seethed. Come on, I’m waiting!
“Baron? The hunt’s ended, I think.” Michael heard the bolt click back on Sandler’s rifle.
He smelled the man’s minty after-shave. And then he heard the squeak of polished leather, the soft groan of a floorboard, and he knew Sandler’s boots were within reach.
Michael grasped out with both hands, trusting his sense of hearing. His fingers found Sandler’s ankles, in the middle of the corridor, and locked tight. He shoved forward and up with all the strength of his back and shoulders.
Sandler had no time to cry out. He fell, his torso twisting. The rifle went off, the bullet thunking into the ceiling, and he crashed against one of the razor-studded walls.
Then the hunter screamed.
As Sandler hit the floor, thrashing in pain, Michael leaped upon him. His hands closed on the hunter’s throat and began to squeeze. Sandler choked-and then a wooden object slammed into the side of Michael’s jaw and the rifle’s butt knocked Michael’s grip loose. Michael held the hunter’s shirt. Sandler was trying to scramble away from him, and again the rifle butt struck Michael, this time across the collarbone. Michael fell backward, his vision still blinded by blue whorls, and he felt the wall’s razors bite into his shoulders. The rifle went off once more, the spark of fire leaping from its barrel but the bullet going wild. Michael flung himself onto Sandler again, and drove him against the razors. Again Sandler screamed in pain, and terror was mingled in the cry as well. Michael got hold of the rifle, hung on to it as Sandler fought wildly. Leather-gloved fingers jabbed for Michael’s eyes, grabbed his hair, and wrenched it. Michael struck his fist into the hunter’s body, and heard a whoosh as the air exploded from the man’s lungs.
They fought on their knees in the corridor, the car swaying and the razors at their backs. The rifle was between them, both men trying to use it as leverage to get to their feet. It was a silent struggle, with death awaiting the loser. Michael got one foot under him. He was about to haul himself up when Sandler’s fist struck him hard in the solar plexus and knocked him down again. Sandler got his knee up, and it cracked Michael under the chin. The rifle pressed down across Michael’s throat with all of Sandler’s weight behind it. Michael struggled but he couldn’t push the hunter off. He reached up, grasped Sandler’s head, and shoved the man’s face against the razored wall beside him. Sandler howled with agony, and the weight was gone from atop Michael.
Sandler scrambled to his feet, the rifle still in his grip. Michael reached out, snagged one of his ankles, and made him reel into the opposite wall. Sandler had had enough of his maze; he wrenched his foot out of Michael’s grasp and staggered along the corridor, stumbling against the walls and bellowing with pain as the razors slashed him. Michael heard him fumbling with a doorknob, trying to get it open with a blood-slick hand, and at once he was on his feet going after the hunter.
Sandler threw his shoulder against the door. It burst open, flooding the corridor with harsh sunlight. The razors-hundreds of them on either side-glinted in the glare, and some of them were smeared with crimson. Michael was blinded anew, but he could see well enough to make out Sandler’s silhouette framed in the doorway. He lunged forward and crashed into the hunter, the force of the blow taking them both through the doorway and onto the car’s open-air platform.
Sandler, his face slashed to bloody ribbons and his eyes blinded by the sun, screamed, “Kill him! Kill him!” to the soldier who’d been standing guard on the platform. The man was momentarily stunned by the sight of the two gore-splattered figures who’d exploded from the car, and his Luger was still holstered. His hand went to the holster flap and unsnapped it, then he gripped the gun and started to pull it out.
Squinting in the glare, Michael saw the soldier as a dark shape against a field of fire. He kicked the man in the groin before the Luger’s barrel could find him, and as the soldier bent over, Michael brought his knee up into the man’s face and knocked him backward over the platform’s iron railing. The Luger fired into the air as the soldier vanished.