The grinding sound of the collision was still fresh in his ears when he drove the car backward again, spinning the wheel quickly away and jamming the limo into drive. The guards inside the wrecked jeeps fought to aim their weapons, but their shots angled harmlessly into the trees as the big car roared toward the front gate.
Bane never slowed down. His speed had passed fifty when the heavy steel gate came into view and he hoped it would be enough to crash him through. A pair of spotlights from the guard tower grabbed him as he sped forward, into the final stretch now. Bane knew what was coming next. He threw his whole body under cover of the dashboard an instant before a barrage of bullets shattered the remains of the windshield, covering him with splinters of glass. A ricocheting slug burned into his side, a graze only but enough to make him lurch reflexively up so that a second bullet slammed into his shoulder and sent his senses whirling. He felt his lips trembling and struggled with the car, holding tight to the wheel with his one good hand.
Another burst of fire blew out the rear window, and Bane could tell by the angle of the shots that the car was almost upon the gate. He couldn’t raise his eyes enough to check but felt confident he had kept the wheel straight and steady under fire. He felt warm blood soaking through his surgical top and fought down the urge to comfort his wounded areas, knowing he had no hand to spare for the act.
Bane caught the flash of the fence’s top as the limo smashed through it with little resistance. The impact, though, sent the big car careening wildly, out of control; spinning, screeching, its tires making smoke and churning up dust. Only then did Bane raise his head above the dashboard, neck tense against a possible burst from the tower. The car was heading off the road, directly for a tree. He righted it, too much so, in fact, and the tires sank momentarily into the soft shoulder on the other side. He fed the gas just enough to prevent the car from digging itself in and then tore down the open road toward the freedom promised by the lights of San Diego. Miles ahead, he caught glimpses of lights moving in military convoy fashion toward COBRA, their presence a late but welcomed assurance that Washington had finally bought his story, though he didn’t bother considering how.
Bane felt dazed, dizzy with pain. A hospital wouldn’t be a bad idea for him either. His eyelids fluttered. The car flirted with the center line, crossed it. How could he make it all the way to a hospital?
Fire engines screamed by en route to the chaos he had left behind, forcing him alert again. Bane allowed himself a smile, imagining for an instant he could see all of COBRA burning in the rear-view mirror.
What he didn’t expect to see when he moved his eyes back to what had been the windshield was a man in a COBRA security uniform standing in the center of the road. Armed, no doubt, and it was too late — Bane was too sluggish to take evasive maneuvers.
He aimed the limo right at the man, hoping desperately to blind him in the spill of his high beams. The lights caught a huge grinning face instead of a rifle barrel, and Bane screeched to a halt just to the right of the massive figure it belonged to.
“Goin’ my way?” wondered the King.
Epilogue
Bane met the President on a frigid April afternoon two days later. It was cold enough for snow to be in the forecast even in Washington, which made Bane’s wounds throb all the more.
“The doctors tell me you can expect a full recovery, Mr. Bane,” the President said, facing him from behind his desk in the Oval Office.
Bane shifted his right arm in its sling. His left side, damaged more than he had originally suspected, was tied tight with tape to restrict movement. He grimaced as he crossed his legs.
“And the boy, did they tell you about him as well?”
The President hesitated. “A flesh wound. Nothing that time and patience won’t heal.”
“And the rest?”
The President’s mouth dropped. He said nothing.
“Come now, sir, you didn’t really expect they’d keep it from me, did you? I can be a most persuasive man when the spirit moves me.” Bane grimaced again. “He’s dying, Mr. President. Part of his brain’s ruined. Oh, his life will be normal all right for a week, a month, at most a year. But then one day a few blood vessels will go and the boy will simply collapse. So you see Davey Phelps hasn’t got much time and I haven’t got much patience.”
“If you’ll let me, Mr. Bane, I’d like to make amends for all that’s happened.”
Bane slowly uncrossed his legs.
The President’s eyes moved to the empty chair next to his. “That belonged to Arthur Jorgenson. It’s yours if you want it.”
“You’re offering me the directorship of DCO?”
The President rose and held Bane’s stare while he moved toward the window. “Mr. Bane, I don’t have to tell you about the trying times we live in. COBRA is finished. It will be rebuilt, both structurally and personnelwise, but without Chilgers the level of its contributions promises to be substantially reduced. For all his faults, the colonel was primarily responsible for maintaining our technological edge against the Soviets. I fear we’ve lost that edge now, Mr. Bane, and I don’t want to lose any others.” The President pointed at the empty chair. “I’m offering you that chair or whatever else you want because you represent one of those other edges and I don’t want to lose you. You’re the best, Mr. Bane.”
“I wouldn’t be very helpful from a chair.”
“You could do with the job whatever you saw fit.”
Bane shook his head. “I don’t think so, Mr. President.”
“Name your terms. Anything.” A pause. “We need you.”
Bane considered the offer. “I want a name.”
“A name?”
“I want to know who put the kill order out on me five years ago.”
“Kill order? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t even in office then.”
“The information’s available to you, sir, probably closer than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t put that unsalvageable order out on me on your own. Someone else, maybe more than one person, convinced you to. I’ve thought the whole thing out. Someone knew I was getting close and had to save his ass. Someone blew it five years ago, blew it because I didn’t die. It’s someone close to you, Mr. President, that’s the way I’ve got it figured.”
Brandenberg, thought the President. Brandenberg had been top intelligence man in the Pentagon five years back.
“A name, Mr. President.”
“I haven’t got one for you.”
“But you’ll look.”
“I’ll … look. Am I to understand then, Mr. Bane, that if I furnish you with this name, you will come back to work for us?”
Bane held his stare coldly. “What you are to understand, Mr. President, is that if you don’t come up with a name I might come after you instead.”
“You’re threatening me, Mr. Bane.”
“Just a warning, sir. I plan to do a lot of thinking in the next few months. I’ll have nothing but time, because I plan to take Davey Phelps to see some of the world, a lot of it in fact. He deserves that much.”
The President returned to his seat. “I might have a name for you by the time you return.”
“I believe you will have, sir, but I’m not sure right now I’ll be coming back, because every time I see Davey I realize how out of control our world has become. We almost destroyed ourselves two days ago and we’re certain to try it again before too much longer. I’m not sure I want to be a part of that scenario.”