George Chesbro: The Cold Smell Of Sacred Stone

Fifteen minutes.

"Mongo, you've got to get her!" Garth shouted. "If you can get the control box back, you may be able to deactivate the timing mechanism before the charges go off!"

I struggled to my feet as pain knifed through my right leg. Holding my thigh with both hands, I staggered across the room to Tommy Carling's body, began fumbling in his pockets.

"Mongo!"

"I can barely walk, Garth," I said through clenched teeth. "There's no way I can catch her. When those charges go off, this whole building could collapse. I'm not going to leave the three of you here. Carling may have keys on him."

"Then drag the prick over here! I can search through his pockets as well as you can! Get out there and at least try to warn those people! Even if they panic and rush for the exits, at least some will survive; if this place collapses on their heads, nobody is going to get out. You just make sure you get yourself out before it blows. Go, Mongo! Do what you have to do! If the keys to the cuffs are in his pocket, I'll free us; if they're not, there's nothing you can do for us anyway."

My brother had a point. I yanked off Carling's belt, used it as a tourniquet around my leg. I withdrew Whisper from Carling's chest and replaced the knife in the scabbard in my waistband, then dragged the corpse over to where Garth could reach it.

"Garth. .?"

"Damn you, Mongo, go! And keep an eye on your watch! If we get out and you get blown up, I'm going to be really pissed at you!"

Clutching the loose end of the belt tied around my thigh, I hobbled as fast as I could out of the room and down the corridor toward the stone balcony. Already I was feeling faint from shock and loss of blood, and the fiery pain in my leg had become a dull ache-not a good sign. I desperately hoped Garth would be able to free himself and the two Israelis, and that they would survive.

My situation was different. I had limited strength and mobility, and very little time-no time at all to do what I had to do, and still get out. I didn't much care for it, but I was resigned to the fact that if and when the building collapsed, I was going to be at the bottom of the rubble.

The hall was full. Die Gotterdammerung was playing through the loudspeaker hanging on the balcony just below me. I leaned over the railing, ripped the speaker loose, and dropped it in the aisle just below me. It landed with a resounding crash, causing those people in the immediate vicinity to jump out of their seats. In the rest of the packed hall heads turned as people looked in that direction, and then up at me.

"Listen to me, everybody!" I shouted through cupped hands, struggling to be heard over the music playing through the remaining loudspeakers. "Please listen to me! You are in great danger, but if you do what I say and don't panic everybody will be all right! In a few minutes this ceiling is going to collapse on you! You must all start leaving now, quickly but in an orderly fashion! As you leave the building make sure you keep going across the street so as to leave plenty of room for those coming out behind you! Please start leaving now!"

Somebody yelled, " Judas!"

"Damn it, this place is going to blow up! You have to get out!"

And then the music abruptly stopped.

"Please be still, everybody. This is Sister Kate. Everything is all right.''

I glanced to my left at the stage, but it was empty except for the lectern and a standing microphone which were now bathed in a spotlight. The woman was patched into the public address system-undoubtedly a safe distance away from the main hall. I wondered if she had pushed the button on the control box, knew I must assume that she had.

"You have to get out of here! This place is going to blow up!"

"Garth will join us as soon as the marked intruder is driven from our midst. We can do that by calling him by his real name. Judas!"

"Get out!"

The crowd began to chant: "Judas! Judas! Judas!"

"You're all going to be crushed or slashed to bits!"

"Judas! Judas! Judas!"

So much for good intentions, I thought as I quickly loosened the tourniquet to let some blood flow, then tightened it again. There was nothing more the "marked intruder" could do where he was except keep shouting, to no avail, until he went down with the balcony, and that seemed a rather futile gesture. In whatever time I had left, I intended to go back to see if my brother and the Israelis had managed to escape-and live or die with them, as the case might be, if they hadn't.

I was starting to turn away from the balcony when suddenly a forearm with a leather sheath strapped to it dropped out of the shadow darkness of a girder twenty yards or so out over the hall. Blood, black-purple in the gleam of a klieg light that illuminated the forearm, flowed freely down the arm, then dripped off the fingertips onto the upturned faces of the people below. Then the arm began slowly to swing back and forth.

Marl Braxton was beckoning me.

I pulled the belt tourniquet on my leg even tighter, then clambered up on the railing of the balcony. I gripped the edges of the girder's support footing and hauled myself up into the darkness overhead.

I had hauled myself less than five yards when my right hand touched a gummy mound that could only be plastique; there was a hole in the center where a primer had been torn out.

Something I had said-or the sight and touch of Whisper-had gotten through to the insane D.I.A. operative. Marl Braxton, still the consummate professional, had anticipated what his K.G.B. opponents might be planning, and he had set out to stop it. Now it was up to me to finish the job.

Marl Braxton was still alive when I got to him-but he wouldn't be for very long. In his effort to attract my attention, he had draped himself across the width of the girder, and the upper part of his body now hung precipitously over the edge; I could clearly see the large exit wound of a bullet in his back, and I wondered how he had managed to stay alive as long as he had.

"The woman," Braxton rasped, coughing blood. "Crack sharpshooter. . rifle with silencer. . watch out."

I loosened the tourniquet. Blood from the bullet wound in my thigh mingled with Marl Braxton's, dripped onto the people below. The music suddenly began to play again-full blast; it would be more than enough to cover the sound of rifle fire, silenced or not. I gripped the far edge of the girder with one hand while I reached down with the other, grabbed the back of Marl Braxton's shirt, and tried to pull him back up on the girder.

"Too late … for me," Braxton said in a voice I was just barely able to hear over the cascading roar of the music. He coughed more blood. "Defuse. . charges. But don't expose yourself. She … got me from. . wherever she is. She'll get. . you."

"Don't talk, Marl," I said, pulling on the back of his shirt. "Save your strength. You're not dead yet."

"Soon will … be. Charges all along. . this girder."

"I know, Marl. Don't talk."

"No matter what you. . say. . Garth is the Messiah. I was right. I'll be. . with him in paradise."

"Yes, Marl," I said with a sudden surge of emotion that was probably the closest I had come to experiencing a genuine religious feeling in my life, "you'll be with Garth in paradise."

I never heard the rifle shot, but suddenly Marl Braxton's lowered head snapped to one side and a hole opened in his right temple. I released my hold on his shirt, and his corpse slipped off the girder to tumble down into the sea of people below. There was a shocked silence after Marl's body landed, which lasted two or three seconds, and then the people below began to scream and scramble blindly in a sharp crescendo of panic. I ducked back, pulled the tourniquet tight.