Jason Frost - The Warlord

'Timmy?" he asked, looking at the boy.

"Fine," he said, lowering his head.

"Well, Eric, I may have taught you all you know, but I certainly didn't teach you all I know. There are things-"

"You know the part I dreaded most about being captured by you, Fallows? Having to listen to your pompous speeches."

Cruz laughed. "He sure has your number."

Fallows' face tightened with a grim smile.

"Look, Fallows, you've finally got me. Now I imagine you want to toy with me a bit before actually killing me, so why not just let my son and wife go. There's not much sport in hurting them."

"Well, now, Eric, your son and I have grown quite close in the past few days. Old buddies. Right, kid?"

Timmy's face quivered with anger. "I hate you."

"See what I mean. He used to loathe me, now it's only hate. But in a few months, maybe years, he might even come to love me. What do you think, Eric? Possible?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"He wants a son," Annie explained. "He wants Timmy."

Eric remained silent, his mind ticking over possibilities. Dive for the bow; tackle Cruz; jump Fallows.

"So you see, Eric, it's not over yet. Though it is time to say goodbye to some of our players. Unclutter the stage, so to speak." He nodded at Cruz.

It all happened so quickly, so coldly, that Eric didn't have time to react.

Cruz reached over, grabbed Annie by the head, and twisted sharply. The bones crackled like gravel and she flopped forward onto the floor, dead.

Eric lunged for the crossbow, his hands stretching toward it as he flew through the air. But as he dove, Cruz's heavy boot kicked toward his face, crashing into his jaw. It took forever to fall, but finally he plunged into a black, inky ocean. He swam against the tide, toward consciousness. On the distant shore he could see the furniture, familiar people, their faces illuminated by the ghastly light of the moon. Annie, sprawled across the sand, her neck twisted at an uncomfortable angle. Timmy, tied to a chair, his face streaked with tears. Cruz, one foot on the shore, the other in the ocean looming over him, bending over to hit him again. And Fallows. A gun raised over Cruz's head, swinging it into his skull. Cruz swooning, wavering. Fallows hitting him again. Cruz falling into the ocean next to Eric, splashing everyone. Fallows laughing. Someone calling, "Daddy. Daddy!"

And the black tide sweeping him out to sea.

"Showtime, gentlemen."

The voice droned in Eric's ear like a record being played too slowly.

"Come on, Eric," the voice continued. "You're slowing the show down. And I think you're going to like this."

Eric felt the hands on his shoulder holding him up, his knees wobbly, rocking slightly. Something thick and scratchy around his neck.

A sharp slap across the face. His eyes sprang open.

Dirk Fallows stood before him, hands on hips. 'That's more like it. There's a good trooper."

"Daddy!" The word sliced through Eric's foggy mind like a propeller, whooshing away any grogginess. His eyes frantically searched for Timmy. Daddy wasn't a word Timmy used anymore; in fact, he made a point of calling Eric Dad or Father depending on how adult he was feeling. But calling him Daddy now and before squeezed at Eric's heart. All that pain, confusion, and fear packed into one universal word.

Eric tried not to think of his own pain. Of Annie, falling again and again in his mind, each time her neck twisted at a more grotesque angle. He remembered a dream he'd had while unconscious: he and Annie were swimming naked in a clear blue lake. They touched each other underwater, tried to make love but the water was too deep. They laughed and swam for shore. When they arrived, Eric was alone. He dove underwater, searching, but his swimming only made the water muddy. The more he searched, the cloudier the water became, the less he could see.

Annie dead. A fact. Simple as a sunrise.

He had to fight the depression tugging at his body, draining his strength. There was still Timmy to save.

And Fallows to kill.

"Your son's safe, Lieutenant, Down there." He pointed at Timmy, tied to an auditorium chair. For the first time, Eric's head was clear enough to take in the full situation.

He was standing on a board laid across two six-foot ladders. A noose was tight around his neck and his hands were tied behind his back. About five feet to his left, Cruz also stood, a noose around his neck, his hands tied. Eric studied the room.

"It's a church," Fallows explained. "Actually multi-denominational. Used as a synagogue on Saturdays and a Methodist church on Sundays. The rest of the week they split it up between them. At least used to."

The room was huge, built as a modified A-frame with a ceiling that slanted upwards from two sides before joining fifty feet above. The steel girders were exposed at the top as was popular with these designs, painted a sedate blue for the industrial design effect. The rope around Eric's neck had been thrown over the two parallel girders, then dropped on the other side to be looped around Cruz's neck. They were to be hung by the same rope, the weight of the other keeping them suspended, choking.

The scaffold was on the altar overlooking the auditorium's rows of built-in seats. Behind them was a wooden cabinet where the Torahs were kept. One cabinet door had been torn off, the other hung by a stubborn hinge. The Torahs were gone, rescued by some of the faithful or destroyed by someone angry at the gods.

On either side of the altar, were long narrow windows that rose the full height of the wall to the ceiling. Fifty feet high, yet only three feet wide, the design of an architect who'd been told to cut a few thousand dollars out of the plans and had therefore made the windows three feet narrower, requiring less of the outrageously expensive stained glass. Both the rabbi and reverend had been pleased by this compromise. One of the windows was completely shattered, the stained glass in broken heaps on the floor inside and ground outside. The other was only half destroyed; for some strange physical reason the bottom half of the window had broken along the leaded design while the top half remained, filtering out the orange sunrise beyond. The designs on the remaining glass were modernistic to the point of abstract, meant to offend neither group sharing the building. Something like two blue boxes that might have been the Ten Commandments. Three intersecting triangles that resembled either Mt. Sinai or a dove in flight.

"Like the good old days, eh, Eric?" Fallows said, tapping his bayonet against his open palm. He stood to the side, the board not being wide enough to stand in front. He reached out with the point of the blade and ran it Lightly along Eric's scar, the blade making scraping noises as it brushed whiskers around the scar. "Nasty accident. Wish I could say this was the same bayonet, just for irony's sake, but I'm afraid I left that baby buried in the belly of a Cong. Same day you had your little accident." He moved deftly to the end of the scaffold, the board quivering with each step, threatening to tip over. Fallows climbed down the ladder and stood in front of them looking up at his handiwork. He nodded with satisfaction. "Ingenious. And what's more, good theatre." He laughed. "Too bad you sent your friends chasing my troops, Eric. I was hoping to capture them too. They would have made a fine audience. I don't think Tim and I will be able to stay for the complete performance. I think it wise to put some distance between everything that's happened here and us."

"I'll find you," Cruz said, his voice calm. Not a threat, a fact.

"Not much on dialogue, is he, Eric. But somehow effective. At least he didn't say, 'You can run but you can't hide.' "

"I'll find you," Cruz said again. His repeating it made it even more ominous, and for a moment. Fallows looked shaken.