Don Pendleton - Tower of Terror

He found his pistol, wallet, and the D.F. and minimike on the hood of a car. But before he could return his possessions to his pockets, he heard someone running in the alley. He spun, leveling his Browning at the entrance.

"What's going on here?" Gadgets ran into the garage. His canvas bag was wrapped around an Uzi, concealing it from witnesses.

"Now, nothing." Blancanales holstered his pistol. "I had my conference, they brought me back. And do I have information!"

"Yeah? Well, they got Lyons."

"Shot him?"

"I don't know. But something's gone wrong. We thought you were in here. Twenty minutes ago we took out the sentries, then Lyons came down and was going to get in quiet, bring you back. And suddenly, no Lyons!"

They returned to the alley. Gadgets tried the hand-radio again, pressing the transmit button several times, shouting into the unit, "Hey! Where are you? Come in!"

No response.

"When he checked in, he told me he was still on the street."

"Those guys in there — the Puerto Ricans — they didn't take him. You won't believe it, but they're on our side. I'll explain later. Where's our backup?"

"On the other side of the block. Come on, we've got to backtrack him."

Gadgets jogged away, clutching the canvas bag around the Uzi. He glanced at the doorways and fire escapes. Blancanales slipped the envelope into the waist of his jeans and followed his partner. He left his pistol in its shoulder holster: whatever was going to happen to Lyons had already happened.

Several fire escapes were suspended on the sides of the alley. Blancanales scanned the landings. On the higher floors of the buildings, he saw laundry, potted plants, furniture. He heard television voices and the rhythms of Latin music. But there was no one at their windows, no one standing in the back doorways.

Ahead of him, Gadgets spoke into his hand-radio, then went around the corner onto the avenue. Blancanales poked along, looking into doorways, glancing into trashcans. He saw something odd.

A textbook lay on the filthy steps of a basement's freight entrance. It was new, the pages stiff, unmarked by underlining or notes. Blancanales examined the area closely.

On the brick edge of a window, there were footmarks in the accumulated soot and dirt. At the top of the window's security bars, someone's hands had left two smeared spots in the filth coating the bars. There was a fire escape directly above the window. On the lowest rung of the steel ladder, there was a smear as if someone had clutched it.

And then he saw something else: on the bricks of the tenement, on the sheet steel of the basement door, and on the asphalt of the alley, splattered drops of blood.

Lyons breathed. He felt air moving through his mouth and throat. He strained to fill his lungs, but there was an immense weight on his chest. Trying to move his arms, he felt steel cut his wrists. Handcuffs. He wondered why they had bothered. For they had shot him in the back of the head.

How long until he died? Seconds? A minute or two? How long until his life drained through the hole in his skull?

He had no vision. Only thoughts. Thoughts of life in this last second of living, telescoped by onrushing death to trick him into thinking he had minutes left.

Sensations came to him. He heard quick sing-song conversation, not English. Chinese? Japanese?

A low, unheard vibration. A lurch forward, then a stop. He was in a car or truck. He could smell the exhaust. The vibration came from the engine idling.

The weight on his chest shifted. Someone was kneeling on his chest, to immobilize him. Perhaps he was dying, perhaps not. Then it all came back to him.

In the alley, he had felt the pistol against his head, had stepped down from the barred window. When they grabbed his arms, he twisted away from the pistol, slammed one man's face with his elbow, saw blood. Turning, he kicked another man, chopped an arm holding a pistol. He saw an Oriental face and grabbed it by the hair, and in the instant that he jerked the head down into his upcoming knee, Lyons had felt the back of his head explode. Then he had fallen into the void.

They had captured him. They put him in a car. They wanted him for interrogation. He had seen enough eye-gouged, blow-torched, pliers-mangled corpses in his years to know what might soon happen to him. If he fought now, in this car, his struggling might only bring the coup de grace, the second bullet. But that way he would escape the long hours of horror.

Thrashing suddenly, he heaved the man off his chest, then twisted on the seat and kicked out. He felt his feet smash glass. He kicked again and again, wildly. He connected with someone's head, someone else's arms. Another man grabbed Lyons by his hair, hit him.

But the fist glanced off his head. He could see! The glancing punch had half torn off a rag covering his eyes. He could see an arm swinging a pistol. He twisted again, blocked it with his shoulder, kicked out again.

Hands closed around his throat. He heaved and thrashed but couldn't break the grip. He had only seconds of consciousness left.

Lyons had not served a decade with the Los Angeles Police Department without learning that handcuffs could be broken. He'd seen crazies do it. Was he strong enough? Was he crazy enough? Despite the thumbs crushing his throat, he relaxed his shoulders, forced his handcuffed wrists down over his buttocks. He strained down with the muscles of his back and torso, while pulling up with his arms and shoulders. The pain became a white light.

The handcuffs broke. Screaming like a beast, he slammed his numb arms against the heads of his captors. Blood sprayed onto the car's windows.

Outside the car, he saw other cars, trucks, the fronts of shops. Even as he reached for the driver's head, the car accelerated. The driver twisted from Lyons' grasp. His fingers were too numb to grab the man's hair. Lyons thrust himself forward, hooked his arm around the man's throat, pulled him backwards with incredible force.

The car swerved out of control. A pistol's blast seared the air around him. With Lyons' one arm still around the driver's throat, the other arm hammering into the bloody face of the Oriental with the pistol, the car leaped the curb and crashed.

Now, amidst battered, grappling people, Lyons had the pistol. He fell backwards from the open door, rolling onto the sidewalk. Faces peered down at him.

" Police officer !" Lyons screamed. " Stand back! Back !" He stood gasping, sucking air into his lungs. The crowd gathering around him stared. A woman looked away, covered her mouth. Two small kids carrying shopping bags gaped at him, their, mouths open. One kid said to the other, "That cop's all messed up. Betcha he dies."

Lyons wiped his face, saw blood and flesh on his hand. He felt the back of his head, found a quite small sore spot, but no wound. Had they pistol-whipped him? Hit him with a blackjack? No time to speculate. He stood up gingerly.

The Orientals' car was a late-model Ford sedan. It had taken off the left front fender of a parked Volkswagen, jumped the curb, snapped off a parking meter, crashed into a telephone pole. Lyons had apparently kicked out a rear door window. There was a neat hole in the roof where a bullet had exited.

Lyons glanced into the front seat and saw a young Oriental woman with blood on her face, lying in the footwell. She wore a conservative blue skirt-suit with a white silk blouse and knotted scarf. Her skirt was up around her thighs, exposing long slim legs. A garter holster held a .22 automatic just above one knee.

Lyons kept the captured pistol pointed at her head, took the .22 automatic, then slipped his hand under her jacket. She wore another pistol in a shoulder holster. Again, an automatic. He pocketed the second pistol. Suddenly she tried to jab her fingers into his eyes, but he jammed his pistol into her solar plexus. She gagged, choked.