Aaron Elkins: A Deceptive Clarity

"Issued yesterday at Rhein-Main," I said. "Department of Defense prerogative."

This, whatever it meant, had its effect.

"Okey-doke," he said. He shifted his rifle a little farther around his shoulder and turned to operate the combination padlock. When it opened with a sharp click, he pushed the handle down with his clumsy farm boy's hand, leaned his shoulder against the metal door, and shoved.

The heavy door groaned over the concrete floor, and a weak shaft of. light from the hallway slanted diagonally into the otherwise dark room. I could see some large picture crates standing on end, and I leaned to one side over his shoulder to get a better look at them as he pushed the door fully open against an inside wall. This was, after all, my first sight of the collection of masterpieces I was going to be responsible for.

It was a good thing I did, because it saved my life.

There was a hoarse, boarlike grunt, then a scraping noise, and from the darkness hurtled something that I thought in momentary confusion was some kind of vehicle rushing out at us. What it was was one of the crates, flung end over end through the doorway, so viciously that it splintered with a wrenching groan against the concrete-block wall of the corridor. Had I not been moving to the side, it would have struck me full in the face; as it was, it caught my right shoulder with enough force to whip me around and slam me face-first into the concrete.

The last time I'd seen stars, I had been fourteen years old, trying out the high-school trampoline. The first bounce had gone beautifully, but on the second I came down on the metal rim, smack on my nose. It broke then, and it broke now. (The crunch is audible.) The first time it happened, I passed out, and this time I came close. There was a sickly, growing dimness at the borders of my vision, like rose-colored ink spreading on a blotter. I felt my jaw go slack, my eyes begin to roll up, my cheek start to scrape down the rough, cold wall. But this time I managed to fight the darkness off. The pain helped-for a relatively insignificant organ, the nose is awfully well supplied with nerve endings.

Tears streaming from my eyes, blood from my nose, I pushed myself away from the wall and turned, blinking and queasy, to see the guard just inside the storage room, his back against the door, struggling with a man in blue workman's clothing. The man was short but frighteningly massive, built more like a gorilla than a human being; virtually neckless, with a huge chest and long arms as thick as thighs. One thick-wristed hand was on the M-16's barrel, the other on its stock, and he was leaning hard, pressing the rifle into the guard's throat. The guard, husky as he was, was helpless. Crimson-faced and gagging, he was flopping about like a Raggedy Ann doll, banging his elbows impotently against the door.

There was a second man too, no less evil-looking, with a face like a skull: tight, shiny skin; a long, fleshless mouth; hard, mean, bulging eyes. He was hovering to one side like a deadly mosquito seeking just the right place to bite. There was something flexible and metallic in his hand; it looked like the top ten or twelve inches of an automobile radio antenna.

I probably would have been petrified if I hadn't been too stunned to think clearly. Instead, I made for them, none too steady on my legs. Somehow I managed to get one hand on the rifle barrel, the other over the gorilla-man's chin, and tugged with all my strength, digging my fingers into the soft flesh of his mouth. For a moment the three of us strained soundlessly and almost motionlessly, as if locked in a multiple arm-wrestle. The only movement was a pathetic screwing-up of the guard's eyes in my direction, in a purpling and otherwise rigid face. Then, as I got my feet under me and leaned forward, I felt the gritty jaw twist away under my hand, felt the rifle barrel give just a little, so that the guard was able to turn his head to the side and suck in a strangled breath.

That was the high point. From there things slid rapidly downhill. Skull-face turned his attention from the guard to me, lashing out in a precise little movement with the antenna thing, snapping it like a tiny whip. It caught me on the outer bone of the right wrist. The pain was so astounding that I yelped and let go of No-neck's face. Another concise little movement and the antenna flicked my left wrist, same place. I gasped and let go of the rifle. The antenna rose again and quivered like a terrible dragonfly. I ducked quickly sideways to avoid it, to get under his arm and ram him in the chest with my shoulder.

That was the plan. As it happened, No-neck intervened. It was like being charged by a rhinoceros. He rammed me against the doorframe, got one clublike hand on the neck of my shirt, the other one tangled around my belt, and actually lifted me off the floor while I pawed at him with numbed hands.

At this point my memory loses its customary acuity, but I think he simply tossed me through the doorway and across the six-foot-wide corridor. I know I banged into the concrete wall a second time, just about where I'd hit it before, but backward this time.

Of the two impacts, I'd have to say the back-of-the-head experience was less painful, but only marginally.

Again the dimming vision, again the sickening pinpoints of lights, and again I worked hard to keep from going under. The floor was undulating under my feet, and it was all I could do to stay upright with the help of the wall. I forced my eyes to focus and saw a repetition of what I'd seen before: The guard was propped against the door, the M-16 jammed savagely into his throat, his fingers plucking weakly at the barrel, but no match for No-neck's powerful hands.

The other one hung to the side again, lifting the antenna thing, holding it poised and vibrating over the guard's head. I tried both to shout and to move, but nothing happened. The metal cracked against the guard's temple and his whole body jerked. I heard his heels rattle against the floor. No-neck flung the rifle clattering down the hallway, grasped the boy by the shoulders, and dispassionately rapped his head against the steel door. Instantly the uniformed body went flaccid and collapsed bonelessly into the corridor.

Skull-face stood in the shaft of light, seemingly studying me, considering whether I merited another application of the antenna, or perhaps worse. I was too woozy to do anything. What I remember thinking in a bemused way, in fact, was how remarkably much his raw, open mouth and hollow, malignant eyes made him look like the shrieking bug-eyed man on the bridge in The Scream, that nightmare on canvas by Edvard Munch.

I guess I didn't pose any immediate threat, because he decided to let me be. He slid noiselessly back into the darkness of the storage room and let his strong-man friend slam the thick door home. I still couldn't move, and while I continued to sag wretchedly against the wall I heard a bolt shoved into place on the other side of the door. Then a crash-a crate being knocked over?-and feet scraping over raw concrete, running up steps. Obviously there was a back way out of the storage room, maybe to the street… Definitely to the street; an engine started up, followed by a lurching squeal as the car-truck, probably-jerked forward before the parking brake was released. Another roar of the engine and they were gone.

There didn't seem to be any pressing reason for me to stay on my feet, so I got slowly to my knees and lowered my head, gingerly shoving some wadded tissue into my nostrils to stop the bleeding. When I felt that I could dare to move away from the support of the wall, I crawled on my hands and knees to the guard and touched his shoulder. To my relief he stirred and moaned.

"Hoo," he said. "Hoo boy." He hauled himself to a sitting position against the wall and kneaded the back of his head, his eyes closed. "Jeez."