He pressed the button to open the air-lock chamber, then crammed himself into the tiny space. With a deep breath, he pressed the second air-lock and opened the hatch to the outside.
The brightness of the Martian landscape startled him at first, and he lifted his eyes to the dark sky until they could adjust. A few seconds later, he was scrambling like a mummified mountain goat over the top of the bunker, trying to find a way in. With his foot, he kicked off more chunks of the soil-colored camouflage material until he finally discovered a docking hatch.
He activated the radio inside his helmet and waved at the shuttle pilot in the cockpit. “I found a docking hatch. Do you want me to go in, or do you want to fly ten meters over here and try to dock?”
Garibaldi waited a few seconds, and the pilot replied, “Get clear. We’re going to dock.”
He bent his legs and jumped about twenty meters to the ground, landing so lightly that he had to run a few steps to slow himself down. That was when he saw the fresh rover tracks in the red soil. The sight of the tracks gave Garibaldi a very bad feeling in his stomach. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t think Malten would flee overland by rover. He just wasn’t the survivalist type.
But it was too late to suggest caution, because the shuttlecraft lifted up again and came down expertly atop the hatch he had uncovered. Whatever Bester’s bad qualities, thought Garibaldi, he had attracted a very good pilot for his shuttlecraft. When the thrusters went dead, Garibaldi jumped back on top of the bunker with one effortless leap. He peered under the shuttlecraft and saw the robotic mechanism of the air-lock twisting around by itself to find the hatch. They finally paired up and locked with a solid clunk.
He tapped his radio again. “Do you have atmosphere in the bunker?”
“Positive on that,” answered the pilot. “Come back in. Mr. Bester is opening the hatch.”
Garibaldi hurried as fast as the bulky suit would allow to the chamber at the rear of the craft. By the time he got through the air-lock and was stripping off his suit, Mr. Bester was halfway down the hatch. The Psi Cop groaned with pain at every rung of the ladder, and he pounded the head of his thick metal cane on the ladder.
Gray looked at Garibaldi and shrugged. “He insisted on going down.”
The chief began putting on his uniform. “Be careful down there! I saw fresh rover tracks outside.”
Bester’s head disappeared into the hatch, and he was gone. Gray scrambled down after him, and Garibaldi tried to be patient as he waited his turn. He glanced at the young pilot.
“Keep the motor running,” he advised her.
Then he heard a shout. “Oh, my God—stay back!”
Garibaldi was so anxious to see what was happening that he dropped the last few meters of the ladder onto very plush blue carpeting. He was amazed when he saw the vast layout of viewers, computers, and editing equipment—it was truly a decked-out communications bunker. There were hardly any other furnishings in the room, except for a workbench and a few chairs. It was one of the chairs that Bester and Gray were staring at.
Arthur Malten, wide awake but looking haggard, was tied to one of the chairs, with a bomb strapped to his head. He was trying to hold perfectly still, but the sweat was running a marathon race down his face. Pinned to his chest was a note that read: “Compliments of the real revolutionaries.”
“They came in,” he gasped. “Martians! I didn’t see them!”
Garibaldi edged forward. “Can we disable it.”
“No, no!” screamed Arthur Malten. “It’s got a motion detector on it. You get too close—kaboom! If I move too much—kaboom! They explained it to me in loving detail. They also have a remote!”
That last admission made Bester start hobbling toward the ladder with his cane. “Listen, Malten, we’re not the bomb squad. I’ll send for some specialists.”
“Bester!” called the desperate telepath. “I didn’t mean it personally! You understand, it was politics.”
“Of course,” said the Psi Cop. “It was a damn good try, too. You took me by surprise and nearly succeeded. I’ll remember that.”
“The Mix,” croaked Arthur Malten. “Try to save it.”
“We will. Come on, gentlemen.”
“But we just can’t leave him here,” Gray protested. “Garibaldi, do something!”
The security chief rubbed his hands together and tried to think. “We need some small clippers, but if we can’t get close to him …”
“Mr. Bester!” called the pilot from above. “An unidentified man is telling us we have thirty seconds to get off or else!”
“I am sorry about Talia Winters, too!” wailed Malten from the chair. “And Emily!” He began to sob, and his head bounced around, which made Bester squirt up the ladder.
“That’s a deathbed confession,” said Garibaldi, pushing Gray toward the ladder. “Let’s move it!”
“There’s no hope for him?” asked the telepath.
“Not unless we get help. Move it!”
The light gravity allowed them to bound hand-over-hand up the ladder, as Malten’s sobs grew louder and more pitiful. When they reached the shuttlecrafi cabin, Bester was already strapped in, and the pilot was going through her preignition checklist. Bester stumbled to his seat, and Garibaldi struggled to get the hatch shut. He fell backward as the robotic link broke and the mechanism retracted into the shuttlecraft.
“Five seconds!” called the pilot.
They heard a low rumble beneath them, and Garibaldi shouted, “Now!”
She jammed on the thrusters as a fireball and concussion rocked the little craft, sending it spinning around. Garibaldi was tossed into Bester’s legs, and the Psi Cop screamed in anguish. The pilot bore down and never gave up on the bucking craft, yet Garibaldi could see one of the jagged peaks looming ever closer in the window. He braced himself for impact, but the pilot hit the thrusters again and spun them away from the mountain.
She picked up altitude as quickly as she could, and everyone craned their necks toward the ports to see what had happened. All that was left of Arthur Malten’s secret bunker was a huge, black crater with a few smoldering sparks at its edges. Debris and twisted bits of metal were scattered for half a kilometer around the site.
“Oh, my,” murmured Gray, slumping back in his seat.
Bester looked reflective. “Maybe it had to end this way. Well, I suppose we can tell the press that he died constructing a bomb.”
Garibaldi scowled and shook his head. “You never want to give the right people credit for anything, do you? The revolutionaries found him before you did, and they weren’t in a negotiating mood. Face it, Bester, you have been one step behind everybody this whole chain of events.”
The Psi Cop bristled. “I’m still going to take down Talia Winters and her uncle.”
“No, you’re not,” said Garibaldi confidently. “I didn’t want to use this, because I’m ashamed of it, but you force my hand. Do you remember the reception on Babylon 5 the first night of the conference? It was our only successful event.”
“Yes, what of it?” asked Bester, sounding wary.
“That night I made a visual of several of your Psi Cops gambling in the private quarters of Ambassador Londo Mollari. I believe he was teaching them three-card monte.”
Mr. Bester looked pale, but he still managed a smile. “That can’t be true. You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?” Garibaldi countered. “You can ask Ambassador Mollari for confirmation. He was, shall we say, my accomplice.”
Bester’s lips thinned, and he stared hard at Garibaldi. But Harriman Gray inserted himself between the men and warned, “Don’t scan him, Mr. Bester. I will help him block it. Suffice to say, Garibaldi told me about this incriminating visual, but I begged him not to use it.”