The Hammer Falls Read online

Horace could not help glancing at Mogilevich and the guards to see if anyone had noticed his discomfiture. He felt like a bad poker player who had just missed the draw on a straight flush, squealed with disappointment, laid his balls on the table to be hammered flat, and then hoped no one noticed.

  Another round bell rang, and again Horace could breathe. The fighters returned to their corners, gasping, sagging, trembling with exhaustion and pain.

  The minute until Round Three ticked by with agonizing slowness. Every second was a razor across bone. Horace couldn’t take his eyes off Jack, wishing Jack knew Horace was here, that he wasn’t alone. It was a lonely goddamn thing to die, and no one in the world knew it better than Horace. Even with tens of thousands of fans screaming his name, he had been utterly alone every single time the lights went out.

  The bell rang, and the Brazilian charged like a bull, slamming Jack into the turnbuckle before the ring man could get completely out of the ring. Apparently Carvalho-Silva had spent the last round saving his strength for one great assault. Jack flung elbows at his opponent’s neck and head, but the Brazilian went low, hooking an arm under Jack’s crotch, and executing a fluid judo throw that landed Jack on his back with the Brazilian atop him. A twist, a whirl, and suddenly Jack’s injured arm was jerked into an armbar, the wrist clutched against the Brazilian’s chest, the elbow bent backward against the Brazilian’s pelvis.

  Jack screamed.

  A phantom pain shot through Horace’s arm from wrist to shoulder, the arm to which Andre the Titan had done exactly the same thing in ’62.

  A sound like a wet tree limb snapping echoed through the space.

  Jack’s body went limp, probably passing out from the pain.

  The Brazilian levered himself up to kneel at Jack’s head.

  Jack’s arms lay spread-eagled and slack.

  The Brazilian drove the heel of his hand hard under the point of Jack’s nose. There was a wet pop of cartilage. Jack’s chin jerked upward once and then his head fell to the side, eyes half-open, and his feet began to twitch.

  Horace’s legs turned to water and his eyes misted. Even after a life fraught with so much death, so often real, it could still affect him. Amid the applause and approbation for the victor, he fell into another coughing fit to clear the lump from his throat and conceal the snot about to drip.

  The audience gave a standing ovation.

  Colin Ross stepped into the ring and began speaking, but Horace could not focus on what he was saying. The audience resumed circulating.

  Mogilevich straightened his suit and said something to his security. He took a step from the table but was blocked by a guest bringing him another gift. Roxanne’s eyes flashed, and she leaped up.

  GO NOW!

  Horace left the table, heading for the dome exit that led toward the toilets. Spreading smiles and congratulations, Roxanne and Tina wove through tables and guests to Mogilevich’s side.

  With each step past those priceless cars, past those sparklesilk suits, those embodiments of power and money, across the parquet floor toward that distant door, the cold water in his legs began to heat, and by the time he reached the door, the heat was sizzling, turning his hands into incipient Thunder Hammers.

  A glance over his shoulder told him that Roxanne had been successful in delaying Mogilevich long enough for Horace to leave the gallery so that his absence was as innocuous as possible.

  Even mobsters would hold a piss for two beautiful women. Horace would be waiting for Mogilevich in the toilet. When he came out, if he came out, Tina and Roxanne would be already in the car. Tina’s job was to make sure Roxanne got out alive. Horace would be alone to fight his way out. It was the only way Roxanne could make good on her promises to all of them. To save Lilly and her children, Roxanne had to live. Horace did not.

  Beyond the door was a hallway that curved with the contour of the house’s outer wall. The walls were of pale teak, masterfully carved into intricate reliefs of pastoral scenes from an idyllic Russia, where peasantry toiled in contentment and livestock frolicked to the slaughter. A few paces down the hallway was a toilet, door hanging ajar, unoccupied.

  “That’s the one,” Bunny’s voice said in his ear.

  He stepped into the most palatial shitter he had ever encountered. Every surface was marble, gold, or chrome. The feet of the porcelain commode were those of golden lions, the flush handles on the commode as well as the gleaming urinal also solid gold lion paws. The vanity was gleaming chrome and alabaster, the mirror surrounded by sparkling pinpoints of light. The toilet was surrounded by an enclosed wooden stall, with every surface either immaculately polished or intricately carved.

  The air was redolent with sandalwood incense. He didn’t know whether he should take a shit or meditate. Perhaps he would drop a long brown python down Mogilevich’s neck after ripping off his head.

  He slipped into the toilet stall and shut the door.

  The moments began to tick by, each one kicking his thoughts to a higher gear. Should he hide behind the door? He was a master tactician of the pit, not the poo-poo room. And all three of Mogilevich’s bodyguards would be with him. Maybe one of them would even hold the old man’s dick and shake it for him. Should he go for Mogilevich first? That would be suicide if he didn’t take out the bodyguards first. Once he took out the security, Mogilevich would be his to deal with. However, there was no question that Mogilevich was armed. Most likely, he would be a nasty customer all by his lonesome.

  The door opened, and a shadow moved across the ceiling.

  A thick voice said, “Somebody in here?”

  Horace made noises like he was zipping up and grunted, then opened the stall door. There stood Joey Luca.

  Horace ignored him and went to the sink to wash his hands.

  Luca’s eyes burrowed into him, flickering between recognition and confusion. Horace gave him a disdainful glance, dried his hands on a feather-soft towel, and stepped into the hallway, where Mogilevich waited between the two bodyguards.

  Mogilevich entered without a glance at Horace. Before the door closed, Luca’s reflection was following Horace with that look.

  Horace paused near the bodyguards outside and reached for his breast pocket. “Say, fellas, either of you got a light?”

  Before either of them could speak or act, his right arm swept up and he triggered the electro-fiber blade in his bracer. There was a tiny, electrical snap as it flicked out, thirty centimeters of gray mono-fiber extending past Horace’s knuckles, and sliced one man from Adam’s apple to temple. Horace’s left hand lashed out and caught the second man by the throat.

  Trained to be instantaneously alert, the second guard almost knocked Horace’s grip aside, but The Hammer’s massive, hardened paw reached halfway around the guard’s neck, slammed it against the wall, and clamped as tight as a vise, choking off all breath. The man’s gauntlet came up with another electric snap.

  The armor of Horace’s forearm seized tight, iron-hard, to stop the points of four blades that suddenly thrust out from the guard’s gauntleted knuckles.

  Then the familiar, warm flow of pain and blood told him the blades had penetrated his armor. How deep, he didn’t have time to discern. The man’s other hand gripped Horace’s wrist and began to twist with an inexorable power that must have been augmented by the armor. But Horace’s free arm swept toward the man, who did not see the oncoming blade until it was too late. It took him through the face and skull and frontal lobe, and his body went limp as a rag doll.

  Horace let it drop, jerked his forearm free of the four blades—his pinky and ring fingers went numb—and charged through the bathroom door. He crashed straight into Joey Luca, who was coming to investigate the scuffle.

  Horace grabbed the barrel of the slug-thrower that was already free of its holster. A burst exploded with deafening strobes of muzzle-flash from the auto-pistol. Bullets strafed across Horace’s legs, ripping massive holes in his swanky suit, feeling like a succession of distinct but painless bumps. His legs se
emed to slow and thicken for a split second before the armor released him to move again.

  Recognition blossomed in Luca’s face with a healthy dose of incredulous horror. “Hammer!”

  “Hiya, Joey.” Horace wrenched the barrel aside and it went off again, spraying connect-the-dots pockmarks up the gorgeous marble wall. The pressure of reinforcements coming any moment bore down on the back of his neck.

  Luca jerked hard on the pistol, pulling Horace off balance and directly into an iron-hard punch to the nose. Horace staggered back for a moment, blinking away tears. Blood poured down over his lip.

  “Code ten!” Luca yelled.

  And then the lights went out.

  The room fell into dimness, illuminated only by two small night-lights.

  Luca tapped his ear in confusion, as if expecting to hear something that did not come.

  Mogilevich burst from the stall, a chrome slab of pistol in his hand bearing upon Horace’s face. Horace threw up an arm and ducked. The slugs raked across the arm where his face had been, the armor pulsing its protection against the barrage, but Horace felt a thump on the crown of his head, as if a nun had just whacked him with a ruler.

  In the confines of the restroom, there was no time to think. He kicked Luca as hard as he could straight in the belly, driving him back into Mogilevich, whose next pistol burst tore through the ceiling and rained alabaster grit onto their heads. They both staggered off balance and Horace lunged with his blade. It went deep into Luca’s belly. Luca made a guttural noise, and his armor, sensing the continuing intrusion, seized the blade and held it tight. Luca went down onto his back, knocking Mogilevich into the wall. Horace yanked hard to draw back for another blow, but only lifted Luca half off the floor. The blade would not come out.

  Mogilevich slammed his hand against the solid-gold light fixture, and a section of marble wall fell inward. The gangster darted into the opening. Horace raised his left hand and fired the electro-fiber shuriken at Mogilevich’s back before it disappeared into the opening, which whispered shut immediately behind him.

  Luca curled around Horace’s blade like a pinned insect. Horace could not pull away, so he fell upon Luca with his free fist, his first blow glancing from the side of Luca’s cheek. Luca’s free arm clawed at Horace’s face. As Horace drew his arm back for another blow, tingling weakness made his arm feel as if it weighed two tons, like he had just spent a solid hour at the speed bag. His lungs felt full of broken glass.

  With all the strength he could muster, he slammed his stone-hard fist again toward Luca’s face, this time squarely in the teeth. The back of Luca’s head slammed into the floor with a loud crack, and his eyes went glassy, the arm clutching for purchase at Horace’s eyes falling slack for an instant.

  In the moment of freedom, Horace took a deep breath, gathered his strength again, and raised his fist for a one-handed Thunder Hammer. Like a sledge it came down on Luca’s forehead and burst his skull like a watermelon.

  Every breath a ragged gasp, he hovered over Luca’s body, trying to catch his breath for just a moment. His heart labored, struggled, tripped, and stumbled. The tattoos on his hands shone through their synth-skin covering. Any second now, more guards would converge upon the sound of gunfire.

  He jerked on the blade again, but Luca’s armor refused to relinquish its grip. All he could do was release the bracer and leave it.

  He slammed the light fixture as he had seen Mogilevich do. The wall opened again, and there beyond lay a narrow passage dimly lit by red emergency lights.

  The sound of oncoming heavy feet in the corridor filtered through the door.

  He lurched through the opening and it whispered shut behind him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The passage crawled between walls, a narrow space filled with cobwebs and dust and the smell of rodents. Thirty feet from the bathroom, a mechanism built into the wooden studs revealed the backside of another hidden door.

  Roxanne’s voice came into his ear. “Did you get him?”

  “Bastard ducked into a hidey-hole,” he said. “Time to play whack-a-mole. Where are you?” He touched the wetness trickling down the back of his head, sticky in his stubbled hair, from the crease a bullet had made across his pate.

  “In the car, but Tina ran back inside.”

  “Goddammit!”

  Bunny’s voice chimed in. “I can make their security chase their tails for a little while longer—oh, chase ’em! Chase ’em! Chase, chase chase!—but not much longer. Right now, they’re combing the house for the boss, but Jimmy is sending false messages through their comm systems—hold it! I got him. The Bad Guy is in his office, going through his desk.”

  The crazed tinge in Bunny’s voice did not fill Horace with confidence. Remembering how she looked just minutes ago, he wondered what she could she turn into. “Where?”

  “Third floor.”

  “How do I get there?”

  “How should I know? You’re invisible to me. I recommend stairs. Kinda got my hands full...”

  An explosion ripped through the structure somewhere and sent a deep shudder through the house. Dust rained down onto his head.

  “There, that should keep them busy for a while. The White Rabbit is back, you doody heads!”

  “What the hell did you just do?” he said.

  “Had one of the drones launch a missile at the house. It was a very pretty explosion. Fire tulips!”

  “You sliced a drone?”

  “Yes, but it was very stubborn. I might not be able to hold it.”

  “Holy shit, make sure I never get on your bad side,” Horace said.

  “I would not recommend it, Mr. Potty Mouth. Now, don’t talk to me. In the middle of a dogfight. Ruff-ruff!”

  Filtering through the structure of the house came the distant whine of turbines and the ripping thunder of a mini-gun.

  Roxanne’s voice came through, “Horace, I’m looking at the blueprints of the house. Like Bunny said, the secret passages are not in the plans, but from the toilet, I can guess your position. Keep going and you should reach the elevator shaft.”

  Another fifty feet down the curving passageway, bathed in scarlet glow, he came to the end of the passageway and another door. He pressed a red button beside the door, and it opened into the dimly-lit column of the elevator shaft. Five meters below lay the naked, natural stone of the mountainside, upon which the house’s foundations had been built. Twelve meters above hung the bottom of the elevator car. Two meters to his left was the service ladder.

  Swinging himself onto the rungs of the service ladder, he began to ascend.

  “Tina!” he called into his microphone. “Where are you?”

  No reply.

  “Talk to me, sister.”

  Still nothing.

  The service ladder took him up the shaft, the steel and concrete enclosure eerily quiet, to the top of the elevator car. Pulling open the service hatch, he found the car empty and squeezed himself down through the opening.

  “Bunny,” he said, “I’m in the third-floor elevator. Where’s his bedroom?”

  A floor plan flashed into his HUD, with flashing dots to indicate Horace’s and Mogilevich’s locations. Then the floor plan shifted to transparent lines of varying opacity, indicating walls and hallways beyond what he could see, with a trail of animated yellow arrows on the floor indicating the direction he should go.

  First, however, he tore off his suit and tie. There would be no obstruction to his movements, no veneer of civilization over his actions, and the black armor would provide better camouflage in darkness. Under the synth-skin, his tattoos shone through like a flashlight through clenched fingers. In his reflection in the polished stainless steel of the elevator walls, he resembled a disembodied head glowing like a jellyfish.

  Opening the elevator doors revealed a hallway just as opulent as the rest of the house but swathed in dimness. The only light came from a door that was ajar at the far end, through which shone the glaring white of a shifting floo
dlight.

  The yellow arrows on the floor pointed straight at that doorway.

  Six doors, three on each side of the hallway, any one of which guards with guns could pour out of at any moment, lay between him and his target.

  The dark, lush carpet was so thick and soft it was like walking on feather down, and it muffled his footsteps perfectly. The blaze of a floodlight came and went through the crack in the far door.

  His ears sharpened to hypersensitivity, but there was no sound in the far chamber. The paintings on the walls of czars and czarinas seemed to watch him as he crept past, the eyes of ages past.

  Then an electronic voice, impossibly deep and sonorous and menacing, emanating from hidden speakers, immersed Horace in ripples of sound from every direction. “Feed your head, children.”

  And then the music started.

  A trickle of guitar riff. Backed by a repeating, wordless chorus of male voices singing an ominous crescendo.

  “THUN-DER!”

  The pounding bass of “Thunderstruck” ripped through the house at concert volume, pumping its strength into Horace’s very bones.

  His lips peeled back into a grin of feral glee, and he thought he heard a growl from the room beyond. “What the fuck!”

  Horace paused with a hand on the door.

  “THUN-DER!”

  “Where the fuck is that coming from?” the voice said.

  “THUN-DER!”

  A voice emanated from what sounded like a walkie-talkie, a steady, comforting voice. “Unknown, Master. Regrettably, the audio is one of my systems that have been sliced. I am attempting to regain control.”

  “THUN-DER!”

  “Do it! Or I pull your fucking plug! Total erasure!”

  The music rose, and rose, and rose. The drums pounded like artillery.

  A hoarse guttural cry of animal frustration tore from Mogilevich’s throat.

  Horace counted the seconds, waiting for his moment.

  The music rose, then exploded with his cue. “THUN-DER!”

  He charged through the door.

  Across a broad expanse of antique, hardwood desk, Mogilevich stood, hand in a drawer, eyes bulging impossibly white in the darkness, mouth gaping. Behind him an enormous paned window reached to the ceiling with the floodlight from a drone sweeping back and forth through the glass. His hand snatched at something silver on the desktop.