Cliff Ryder - Out of Time

winked to black. He studied the diagrams of the seventh floor, and then returned his gaze to the dark screen. When it flickered momentarily and then came back to life, showing the empty hallway and the wall fronting Dr. Tempest’s office, the man smiled.

“So,” he muttered. “You’re here after all. And I was almost ready to think maybe you’d do the smart thing and leave it alone.”

The man turned to his left and punched a button.

Another screen lit up. On the screen Alex Tempest leaned against the wall of the service elevator. His eyes were closed, and he looked anything but ready to move. The man pushed the button again, and the screen went dark. He stepped out of the security office and closed the door behind him. He was only four doors down from Rand’s office, and he considered reporting in. They’d been expecting this particular visitor for almost a day, and he knew Rand would want to know the moment had arrived.

Rand thought he was in charge. But orders were orders, and his didn’t involve reporting to the CEO

of the U.S. office in anything but a token fashion.

He had a mission to complete, and he needed to get on with it. Instead of reporting in, he turned toward the maintenance elevator and unsnapped the flap over the top of the long, thin blade dangling from his belt.

This time, Captain Dayne planned to finish off the nuisance for good.

Alex stood and opened his eyes. The elevator car was slowing, and he knew he was going to have to concentrate. He didn’t know if Rand had beefed-up security on his floor, as well, though he doubted it.

He’d know when he tried to open the elevator doors.

He rotated his neck slowly, working out the kinks.

At the end of this motion, just before he turned to the door and pressed the button, he stopped.

Something caught his eye that he’d missed before, something he should have noticed right off the bat. He cursed himself softly, his mind back on track and working furiously. A small glint of light reflected through a crack between metal panels in the door. A camera. Was someone watching? Was it even turned on?

Alex unsnapped the tie on his holster and freed his 9 mm pistol, drawing the weapon. If they were watching, they’d see it and it wouldn’t matter, but if they were waiting for him, it might make the difference. If no one was there, and he was just being paranoid, the gun wouldn’t hurt.

It had bothered him that there were no guards.

He’d been careful, but he’d been careful for a very good reason. There was a biomedical weapon in the building worse than anything the world had never seen. There was a plan for some sort of terrorist strike. There were, in theory, backers and powers above Rand’s level who would be watching, and very disappointed if anything happened.

It didn’t add up. The haphazard security was a sign of something, but he just couldn’t figure out what it was. All of it had brought his senses back to their earlier sharpness. He crouched by the door, and then reached up to punch the button that opened it.

He didn’t take time to think. He lifted the gun, held it close to his chest, then dived forward into the hall, rolling. He swept left as the blade swept down from the right, slashing the back of his biceps. He gasped, but kept rolling, preventing the blade from biting as deeply as it might have. He twisted on his shoulders and got to his feet.

Dayne lunged. He held the long, slender knife in front of him, and his eyes blazed with hatred.

Alex brought the gun up, but Dayne was moving forward and lashed out, kicking the 9 mm pistol out of Alex’s grip and sending it skittering down the hall. Dayne never even glanced at it. He shifted the blade to his other hand and smiled. Alex crouched low and took quick stock of his opponent’s movements. Dayne was quick and agile, and the kick had been well aimed.

“You’re a long way from your crater,” Alex said, backing away slightly.

Dayne saw the motion and lashed out, swinging his blade in a vicious arc that Alex barely dodged.

Alex cursed and dropped back, concentrating on the one the blade that spun and was slashing back at him in a return strike. The man was as fast as a snake.

“You should have stayed disappeared,” Dayne said. “A smart man would have walked away while he still could.” His teeth were gritted, and the words were difficult to make out. Only his eyes were calm—every muscle in the man’s body was taut like strung piano wire.

“I thought about it,” Alex replied, keeping his eyes on the blade. He didn’t want to make the mistake of watching Dayne’s face. “But then I decided I’d rather track you down and kill you and everyone involved with this project instead.”

Dayne reversed his grip on the blade, keeping it moving and twisting, a metal snake of death in his hands. It was mesmerizing, but Alex knew the trick. He shifted his gaze in quick glances at Dayne’s waist and hips. It was an old football trick, one he’d used throughout his martial-arts training.

You could be fooled with a motion of the head, arms, shoulders, even the feet, but where a man’s hips moved, he followed.

Dayne lunged again, and this time Alex was ready. He whipped his arm out and gripped his opponents wrist just above the blade. He yanked, pulling the man toward him, and moved a leg in a sweep at Dayne’s ankle.

But his leg didn’t do what he wanted. He missed slightly, and his sweeping ankle caught the other man on the calf. The blow was glancing, sending Dayne off balance, but his reaction was swift and nearly deadly. Dayne moved the blade to his free hand, and even as he tumbled and rolled past, he slashed out again. The only thing that prevented Alex from being cut was his own bum leg. He dropped as it failed to support him as expected, and the blade flashed by his face, missing by inches.

He moved back, rolling with the motion and coming back to a crouch, even as Dayne flipped back to his feet and came at him again. Fighting with this man was probably going to get him killed, Alex realized. His body had taken too much of a pounding, and his illness was making his responses slow and sluggish. He needed to look for his moment, the one opportunity he might have to end things quickly.

“Not quite feeling yourself, are you, Mr.

Tempest?” Dayne gloated. “Not quite the man you were a year ago, or even a month ago. Not so sharp now that your body is failing. It’s almost a shame to waste my time killing you—you’re as good as dead anyway. If you’d minded your business and stayed clear, I’d have been in and out of here with no one the wiser.”

“You talk a lot for an idiot,” Alex said. He was trying to anger his opponent and get a break.

Dayne was wound so tight he might snap, and it might be his only chance. The hell of it was that they both knew Dayne was right. Alex couldn’t trust his body to respond to his commands. Any moment he might try a block or an attack, and find that he couldn’t follow through. If he collapsed, he’d be dead in an instant.

“She’s a pretty lady,” Dayne said. “Your wife, I mean. It will be a shame, you leaving her all alone.

Brilliant, too, I understand. There’s always work for someone like her with the people I work for.

You think she’ll like me? Maybe…”

Alex shut the man’s voice out. He couldn’t allow himself to be baited. He needed something, anything, that could spin the odds back in his favor.

As long as Dayne remained on the attack and held that damned knife, all he could do was defend and hope for a mistake. It was a bad plan, and he knew he’d need a better one.

The 9 mm pistol was fifteen feet down the slick, tiled hall. He saw no way to reach it on his damaged legs before Dayne caught him. He’d have to turn his back on the man to make the effort.