David Robbins - Seattle Run

Where was the elevator?

Blade spotted a door in the far corner of the room, at the end of the counter, hanging from its upper hinge.

What was beyond the door? An office? Or a stairwell?

Blade rose and hastened across the chamber to the door, Hickok on his heels.

The doorway afforded access to a flight of stairs.

Blade started ascending the stairwell, vigilantly staring upward, the Commando held next to his chest. He came to a landing and paused, listening.

Not a sound.

Frowning, Blade advanced higher. Like the others, his intuition was blaring a mental warning, and prior experience had taught him never to disregard his intuition. But he felt confident they could handle any opposition. And with Rikki and Yama covering the front, what could go wrong?

Plenty.

Blade was two steps below the fourth floor landing when he heard the pad of stealthy footsteps. He halted, perceiving the landing door was open.

The sound of the footsteps stopped.

Blade sidled toward the landing, easing onto the platform and inching toward the doorway.

A dim corridor became visible past the door.

What was that?

Blade thought he’d heard a hushed word spoken, but he wasn’t positive.

He stepped into the doorway and squatted.

Far down the hallway a Stygian figure streaked from one side of the corridor to the other, then vanished.

Someone was hiding down there.

Blade stood and strode forward, managing a solitary stride before all hell broke loose.

The brittle bark of automatic gunfire arose from outside, from the vicinity of the front steps.

Blade whirled toward the landing, intending to race downstairs and aid Rikki and Yama.

Hickok, in the middle of the landing, glanced over Blade’s head. “Above you!” he cried in alarm.

Blade went to look up, but before he could something dropped on him from the darkness overhead. As the constricting object draped around him and encased him from his head to his waist, he realized with a start it was a net!

“Blade!” Hickok shouted, coming to his friend’s rescue.

Just as two forms pounced on the gunman from aloft.

Blade, struggling to extricate himself from the mesh net, saw Hickok go down in a jumble of flailing limbs. The M-16 clattered to the landing.

“Hickok!” he yelled, exerting his massive muscles to the maximum, his veins bulging, but the net refused to give.

The three thrashing figures on the landing rolled to the edge, up to the metal railing. They came erect, still fighting. Hickok was nowhere near as skilled as Rikki or Yama in hand-to-hand combat, but he was holding his own against his assailants until tragedy struck.

Horrified, Blade watched as one of the attackers tried to land a haymaker on the gunfighter’s chin. Instead, the gunman’s foe appeared to trip and slam into Hickok, who was grappling with his other adversary.

The next instant, Hickok was hurtling over the top rail into the abyss beyond.

“Hickok!” Blade screamed.

The gunman plummeted from sight.

“No!” Blade roared, straining against the net, twisting and rocking from side to side.

From the corridor and the landing they came, over a dozen forms converging on the giant, tackling him, bearing him to the floor.

Blade bucked and heaved, kicking at the heads and arms encircling his legs and ankles. His right boot smashed into a man’s face and the antagonist shrieked in agony. He almost succeeded in dislodging those clinging to him, striving to restrain him, when one of his opponents abruptly reared alongside his head bearing an upraised club.

Damn!

Blade saw the club descending and tried to jerk his head aside, but the net hampered his movement.

The club thudded into the left side of the giant’s head.

Blade’s world seemed to spin, with pinpoints of light flickering everywhere.

And then the lights went out.

Rikki and Yama were at the bottom of the front steps when the ambush came.

“I don’t like being separated from the others,” Yama commented, surveying the trees and the buildings across the street.

“It couldn’t be helped,” Rikki remarked.

They waited for a minute in silence.

Yama looked at his diminutive companion. “Did you notice something different this time about the selection process?”

Rikki gazed at Yama. “What do you mean?”

“Blade personally asked us to make this run to Seattle,” Yama observed.

Rikki didn’t see the point. “So?”

“So in the past the selection process was conducted differently,” Yama mentioned. “Think back. When Blade and Plato needed a Warrior to infiltrate the Citadel in Wyoming, they had all the Warriors draw straws. The short straw got to go.”

“That was you,” Rikki said.

“And when they needed a Warrior to venture to St. Louis,” Yama went on, “they had us draw lots again. Hickok and you went.”

Rikki’s forehead furrowed in reflection. “True.”

“That’s not all,” Yama said. “What about the trip to Philadelphia? Again, they drew lots to determine which Warriors would go. But not this time. Blade specifically wanted us. Why? Doesn’t it make you wonder?”

Rikki pursed his lips. “To be honest, I hadn’t given the matter much thought.”

“You were probably too busy communing with the Spirit to notice,” Yama stated, grinning.

“Communing with the Spirit is essential to my inner harmony,” Rikki said. “Don’t you commune regularly?”

“Yes, but not as often as you do,” Yama responded. “I’m more interested in perfecting my craft as a Warrior, in developing my skill in the line of duty.”

“Duty?” Rikki rejoined. “Or death?”

“What?” Yama asked.

“Of all the Warriors, you have a supreme fascination with the subject of death,” Rikki said. “You even took the name of the Hindu King of Death. And of all the Warriors, you are the most versatile at your trade. Most of us have adopted one weapon as our province of expertise, but not you. You have mastered every weapon in the Family armory. When it comes to dispensing death, few of the Warriors are as capable as you.”

“I don’t know about that,” Yama said.

“We are quite different, you and I,” Rikki asserted. “We view life and death differently. I try to live my life to the fullest through the philosophy of the martial arts, while your life is devoted to acquiring as many lethal attributes as possible for the sole purpose of being Death Incarnate. Even our perspectives on the afterlife are diverse. I don’t fear death because I regard dying as simply a technique for attaining a higher level of spiritual living. You, on the other hand, don’t fear death because you don’t fear anything. You are Death, Yama, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Yama retorted in surprise. “I’m just a Warrior, like you.” He paused. “I never knew you felt this way about me.”

“I hope I haven’t offended you,” Rikki said.

“Not at all,” Yama declared. “But there’s more to my outlook on life than death.”

“Like wh—” Rikki began, then spun toward the street, toward the opposite sidewalk, leveling his HK-93.

The trap was sprung.

They poured out of the buildings on the far side of the road, dozens of them, unkempt, clad in rags, filthy and unshaven, and armed with everything from pipes to knives to a few guns. They created a bloodthirsty din as they surged toward the pair of Warriors on the steps, their features contorted in bestial hatred.

“They’re human!” Rikki cried.

“So?” Yama crouched and cut loose with the Wilkinson, downing six of their onrushing attackers with a quick burst. He backed up the steps, Rikki at his side.