Warren Murphy: Return Engagement

Smith's job was to locate Blutsturz and capture him or eliminate him. As the basha deposited him in front of the imposing Dai-Ichi Building, Smith prayed he would not be too late.

Smith identified himself at the greeting desk. "Smith, Harold," he said, showing his identification. "I've been cleared by SCAP."

And just as he turned, he saw Konrad Blutsturz walking in.

Blutsturz did not know Smith, but he knew the expression on Smith's face when he saw it.

Smith drew his weapon and identified himself again. Konrad Blutsturz did not run out the front door, although it would have been the sane thing to do. He plunged into the elevator.

Smith's first shot missed. The second dented the closing elevator door. Seeing that the elevator cage was sinking toward the basement level, he took the stairs.

In the basement, Harold Smith decided not to take Konrad Blutsturz alive. The man had been carrying a briefcase. Smith was certain it contained an explosive or incendiary device.

It was dark. There were no windows. Smith paused, holding his breath, listening.

The sound was the faintest of clinks. A toe striking a piece of coal or broken glass.

Smith fired at the sound.

A roaring fire lit the basement, and in the fire a man danced, screaming. Screaming in a lung-ripping way that Smith, hardened by wartime conflict, had never heard before.

Smith's first thought was to put a bullet through the man to end his death agonies, but the fire-it was only that and not an explosion-was creeping along the floor carried by a volatile liquid propellant.

Smith ran to get help, the sound of those screams forcing him to cover his ears. . . .

Smith awoke as the captain announced the descent into Miami International Airport. He barely heard the captain's tinny voice. He could still hear the screams of Konrad Blutsturz echoing down forty years of memory.

The fire in the Dai-Ichi Building had been extinguished and then hushed up. Konrad Blutsturz had been pulled from the basement, clinging to life, his skin sliding off in charred patches where the rescue team had to touch it.

Smith was on an Air Force transport within a day of the incident, his work done. Digging back through the layers of memory, he could not recall if he had ever heard that Blutsturz had lived. He had always assumed not. Obviously, Blutsturz had. Somehow, sympathizers must have spirited him out of the military hospital in Tokyo. An embarrassing security lapse that was no doubt also bushed tip, Smith thought bitterly.

As the plane touched down, Smith thought how none of those other deaths-those of the fourteen Harold Smiths who had died in his stead-would have happened had he not identified himself to Konrad Blutsturz instead of just gunning him down in the Dai-Ichi foyer. And he vowed to complete the job he had left unfinished in Tokyo nearly four decades ago.

"Enjoy your stay in Miami," the stewardess told Smith as he deplaned.

"Yes," Harold W. Smith said grimly. "I shall."

Chapter 29

Ilsa Gans struggled with the arm. It was heavy. She dragged it across the floor to where Konrad Blutsturz lay, because the bed would not support his weight. Not with two legs of bright titanium, each leg weighing over three hundred pounds.

"This may hurt," she warned him.

"Pain does not matter now," said Konrad Blutsturz, and his face squeezed up tightly as Ilsa forced the jutting implant into the socket receiver. She threw the tiny switch that powered the arm.

The legs already hummed with that quiet power that caused the short hairs along her arms to rise.

"You're all hooked up," Ilsa said, stepping back. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"Smith will not waste time," said Konracl Blutsturz, hoisting his upper body to a sitting position. His shoulder ached where the implant stressed the bone. "He could be here at any hour. I must be ready for him."

With another effort, he curled the legs, stiff like the forelimbs of a praying mantis, and climbed upright. On his feet, he swayed drunkenly.

"You don't look too steady." Ilsa said doubtfully. "The stabilizers will steady me. Quickly, the blade."

"Here," said Ilsa, carefully carrying the curved sickle with the edge pointed away from her. Konrad Blutsturz held his arm out while she hooked it up.

"I hope it holds," she said.

With his good hand, Konrad Blutsturz forced the blade into the recess of his titanium forearm. It clicked into place. And held.

"Good," he said.

Ilsa looked doubtful. "I still think we could have killed him at Folcroft."

"No. This is better. There is his fear for the safety of his wife. This will be more satisfying. Besides, at Folcroft he had many guards at his command. Here he will have no one."

"Don't you think you should put something on? I mean, your, um, thing is hanging out and everything."

"I am proud of my new body, Ilsa."

"Is it real? I mean, can it-"

"Can it do everything a real one can?" said Konrad Blutsturz. "It is a rubber prosthesis. I can relieve myself standing up now, not sitting like a woman. It is also inflatable,"

"Will it, like, feel like a real one?" Ilsa asked. She couldn't take her eyes off it.

"What difference does it make, my Ilsa?" he asked, advancing on her. "You have never felt a real one inside you."

Ilsa shrank back to the wall of the cabin. The raucous cries of Everglades birds echoed eerily in the swamp outside. The muggy heat filtered in through the windows, which had been sealed for many months.

"Shouldn't we wait?" asked Ilsa in a scared voice. "I mean, I want to and all. You know I do. But right now? You're still weak."

"I have ached for you, Ilsa," said Konrad Blutsturz, crowding her against the wall. "Ever since you were a child, I have ached for you, your smooth skin, your youthful flesh."

"My parents didn't like you."

"They were in my way. Now they are in the past."

"In your way! What do you mean?"

"Foolish girl. They were not murdered by others. I eliminated them. Because I wanted you, because I needed you."

"You!" Ilsa cried, shocked. And even before the tears began, she started to scream and pound her small fists against the bare, scarred chest of the man she had believed in for so many years. "You lied to me! You killed them. Not the Jews, not Smith, you!"

Ilsa stopped screaming when the blue hand took her by the throat and began to squeeze.

When she slipped to the floor, Konrad Blutsturz looked at her still form for a long moment of regret. "Ilsa," he whispered. "I did not mean to hurt you." When she did not answer, he began to inflate himself. Death would not rob him of his prize.

Dr. Harold W. Smith cut power to the airboat. There was an islet ahead, tangled with mangrove growth. The water split in two directions around it. He did not know which way to go.

Smith had rented the boat in Flamingo and sent it across a flat expanse of swamp grass until he had reached the mangrove swamp. The air was heavy, and alligators sunned themselves in the black mire at the edge of the increasing number of islands covered with mangrove and moss-draped trees. Despite the climate, Smith still wore his gray suit, his Dartmouth tie knotted tight at the throat. A briefcase lay at his feet.

Smith chose right and kicked on the great propelling fan which whirred inside a protective cage directly behind the pilot's seat.

A hundred yards ahead, Smith saw the cabin. It looked deserted. Smith cut power and let the flatbottomed boat glide to the hump of an island. An egret flashed by through the close dark trees.

From out of the silent swamp came a voice. A now-familiar voice. Smith tensed.

"There have been four great moments in my life, Dr. Smith," the voice called out.

Smith did not reach for the automatic in his shoulder holster. He did not want to betray the fact that he was armed. Not yet.