The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge

Chapter 18

I had a number of moments of numb shock after this, during which period I wished to be alone. Taze was understanding enough to leave when I pointed at the exit, but the doctor tried to start a conversation which I terminated by clutching his neck and the seat of his trousers and heaving through the door which she obligingly held open. Then I kicked in the TV set, an act of wanton destruction that helped a bit, before I poured a stiff cogitating drink. With this in hand I droned into the chair, looked out unseeingly at the star spread sky, and worked out a plan. This was not going to be simple—and dawn was not that far away.

The thought that kept nibbling at the edge of my awareness was finally faced. I was going to have to surrender and get a collar back on—there was no way of avoiding that. My memories of what that was like were not very nice, in fact my brain sort of twitched a bit inside the bone case at the thought. There had been entirely too much traffic through my gray matter of late and I was not looking forward to any more. Yet it was unavoidable. The collar and torture box had to be part of any plan, and they had to be neutralized. Not a very easy thing to accomplish. I mumbled over all the possibilities, and when the attack plan was blocked out I sent for Taze and told her what I was going to do.

"You can't," she said, and I swear those large lovely eyes were filled with tears, "turn yourself over to those fiends. To save a woman. If only the men on this planet were like you. Impossible to believe…"

I resisted the impulse to enjoy a little warm female solace and turned to snapping open some of the weapon containers. At the sight of the grenades Miss Taze retreated and Sergeant Taze looked on with interest.

"This will be a two part operation," I told her. "I'll take care of the first part myself, which will be the penetration of the building and freeing Angelina. I hope to grab a gray man as well, but if that slows me down we'll save that part of the job for another time. The second part of the operation will be getting out of the Octagon, and for that I am going to need your help. I'll need plans of the building, I want to talk to someone who knows his way around it well, someone on the custodial staff if possible, so I can find an area of vulnerability. Can you do this now?"

"At once," she called back over her shoulder as she left. A reliable girl our Taze. I dug into the equipment containers.

Dawn was only two hours away before we were ready to move. I had completed my part of the operation, but setting up the escape afterwards wasn't that simple. The Octagon was very much like a fortress in the eyes of the small forces we could muster quickly. And we were hampered by our lack of any aircraft or heavy equipment. There seemed no way out by air or on the ground. It was one of the maintenance staff, finally located and dragged in shivering, who found the exit and pointed it out with a trembling finger on the blueprints.

"Cable tunnel, sir and mam, goes under the street and under the walls and comes up in sub-basement 17. Big-tunnel for wires and telephone and that kind of thing."

"It's sure to be bugged," I said. "But if we plan this right it won't matter. Take notes, ladies, because I don't want to repeat myself. This is how the operation is going to work."

By the time everything had been taken care of it was less than twenty minutes to dawn and I was in a cold sweat. The first units were moving into position when I put the viewphone call in to Kraj. We were connected at once and I talked before he could say anything.

"I want to see Angelina instantly, and talk to her. I have to be absolutely sure she has not been harmed."

He didn't argue, he had been expecting this. She came into focus and I saw that hated collar with its cable leading up out of the picture.

"Are you all right?"

"As fine as I could possibly be while in the same room with this creature," she said calmly.

"They've done nothing to you?"

"Nothing as yet, other than to clap this collar around my neck and hook the thing up to the ceiling so I wouldn't run away. But you can just imagine the threats this repulsive man has made. I don't think I could live for a moment with a mind like his…"

She stiffened then and her eyes rolled up out of sight although her lids didn't close. Kraj had given her a shot of the nerve torture. I knew at that moment that he would never live if I could get my hands on him. His face reappeared on the screen and it took an effort I did not think myself capable of to stare at him calmly and say nothing.

"You'll come to me now, diGriz, and surrender. You only have a few minutes left. You know what will happen to your wife if you don't. If you surrender she will be released at once."

"What proof do I have that you will keep your word?"

"None whatsoever. But you don't have a choice, do you?"

"I'll be there," I said as calmly as I could manage and turned the phone off—but not before I heard Angelina's shouted no in the background.

"Are those clothes dry yet?" I asked, tearing off my shirt and kicking out of my boots at the same time.

"Just about," Taze said. She and another girl were holding hot air blowers to a Cliaand uniform that I thought was just right for this occasion. It had been soaked in a chemical bath and was now being force dried.

"Almost is good enough, we can't wait any longer."

There were some damp patches, but nothing that mattered. We left, and the powerboat was waiting at the hotel dock below, motor rumbling. So far so good. And the car was there on shore with Dr. Mutfak in the back, black bag on his knees, muttering to himself.

"I don't like it," he said. "It is really a violation of my medical code of ethics."

"War is a violation of any code of ethics or morality, a monstrosity against which any weapons must be used. Do what you have been asked."

"I'll do it, that goes without saying, but a man is allowed to comment upon the ethics involved."

"Comment. But fill the needle at the same time."

We parked in a side street, in the darkness, with the Octagon just around the corner.

"Catalyst," I said, "and don't spill any. Under my arms where the dampness won't be noticed."

I raised both arms and felt the warmth of the liquid from the insulated container, then quickly lowered my arms to trap the wet fabric between my upper arms and my sides. Then I climbed out of the car and put my hand back in through the window, The needle bit into my flesh and that was that. As I started around the corner I heard the car pull away.

The Octagon loomed up like a mountain before me, the sky beginning to lighten behind it. We had cut this very close. There was an entrance ahead, the one I had been directed to, and two of the gray men were waiting. Both wore gausspistols which were still in the holsters. They were very sure of themselves. I walked up to them silently and one of them clamped a come-along cuff on my wrist and led me in through the doors and past the silent guards. I stumbled going up the stairs and after that looked down carefully to see where I put my feet. The injection was beginning to take effect. There was nothing I wanted to say and my captors, they in their usual fashion, had nothing to say to me. They prodded me in the direction they wanted me to go and pushed me through the doorway of the room they wanted me to enter. Once inside they covered me with their guns while the wrist-cuff was unlocked.

"Clothes off," one of them ordered.

It was an effort not to smile. There was the fluoroscope off to one side and the other test equipment. These characters were running true to type, following the same routine they had used when I had first been captured. Didn't they realize that routine was a trap and a losing game? No they did not. I fumbled off my clothes and let them work their will upon me.

They found nothing of course, since there was nothing there to find. Or rather there was one thing that I was sure they would not find. And they didn't. They slowly plodded through their routine examinations and I began to wish they would finish and be done. My head was getting a little foggy from the drug and I felt as though I were wrapped in cotton wool. The injection must be reaching the peak of its effectiveness and would be tapering off soon. What I had to do must be done when the drug was at the height of its power—or close to it—or all the preparations would be useless.

"Put these on," a wooden faced captor said and threw me the familiar transparent dungarees. I bent to pick them up and to cover the smile that I could no longer resist. Done it! They did not seem impatient when I fumbled with the closings on the clothes. I had to watch my fingers carefully to be sure they did their job. When the collar locked around my neck I almost heaved a sigh of relief. We were getting close, and the timing was just about perfect. As one of the guards took the torture box and led me out I lowered my head so I could see where I put my feet so I would not stumble. If this generated an illusion of defeat all the better. We went down a wide corridor and past a staircase, and I made a mental note of its location, even counting the paces after it to get some estimate of its distance from our destination.

Which was Kraj's lair. He was waiting behind his desk, as patiently and as emotionlessly as a spider in its web. Angelina sat before him, her torture box hooked to the ceiling.

"Are you all right?" I asked as I came through the door.

"Of course. Nothing has happened. You shouldn't have come."

As soon as I had this reassurance I turned my attention to Kraj, aware at the same time of the guard closing the door behind us.

"You'll release her now, won't you?" I asked.

"Naturally not. There would be no advantage in that." His expression never changed while he spoke.

"I didn't think you would. Is there any reason why you shouldn't tell me how you caught her?"

"Your memory contained an exact description of your wife. When we discovered that two women had aided your escape we naturally assumed that one might have been this Angelina. The computer identified her as soon as she entered the building."

"We were foolish to take the risk," I said, apparently turning to face her, but looking at the guard instead. He was about to hook my torture box to another hook in the ceiling—and if he did we were trapped.

All I could do was make a dive for him.

"Stop him!" Kraj shouted and the guard looked at me and pressed a quick pattern on the red keys on the box.

I can't pretend that it felt nice. Enough pain leaked through to tear at my stomach with nausea and to knot my muscles. I stumbled and fell at the man's feet, not quite reaching him. The drug I had taken blocked most of the pain, but not all of it. There still had to be nerve pathways open for motor control. My eyes filled with tears and I could not wipe them so my vision blurred and swam. There was a shoe before me and that was no good, and a uniform leg, bad as well.

And then the guard's hand as he bent over to take hold of me. I lashed out with my extended middle finger and scratched the skin on the back of his hand.

He shivered just a bit and kept on bending, almost in slow motion, until he crumpled on the floor next to me, dropping the control box. It was just close enough to reach out and tap the off button.

The pain was over, instantly. And Kraj was behind my back. I scrambled and rolled, fighting my knotted muscles, climbing to my feet.

In the few moments since I had attacked the guard the situation had changed drastically. Angelina lay across Kraj's desk, holding to her collar, writhing in pain. Kraj was on his knees behind the desk reaching for his gun. I dived for him just as he raised it. I was not going to make it, I was too late, he was going to fire and that was that.

But at precisely that moment the distant explosion went off and the floor heaved, dust and bits of plastic shook down from the ceiling and the lights flickered. Kraj had not been expecting this—and I had—and his attention wavered for that vital instant as I slithered across the desk towards him and my fingernail nicked his skin.

He fired, but the slug plowed into the far wall because he was falling, unconscious even as he pulled the trigger.

Angelina must have attacked him as soon as I had dived for the guard. By hanging from the cable she had brought her feet up high enough to get in the one good kick that had sent Kraj over. He had retaliated by going to the radio control before his gun—and this little bit of excess sadism had given me the chance to reach him. But Angelina was paying for this now.

I could not look at her twisting body as I climbed up on the desk beside her. There were a number of controls before Kraj's chair but I was not going to take the time to try to figure them out. Instead I unhooked the box and turned it off. Angelina opened her eyes and lay still, just staring at me as I went through the drawers in the desk.

"Darling you are a genius," she said weakly. I found a key and bent to unlock her collar. "How did you do it?"

"I out-thought them, that's all. They couldn't find any weapons in my clothing because the clothing itself was the weapon. The fabric was soaked in tanturaline which transformed it into a powerful explosive. I put the liquid catalyst on the cloth under my arms where my body heat would keep it from reacting. As long as I was in the uniform nothing happened, but as soon as they made me strip it off—as I was sure they would—the catalyst began to cool and when it reached the critical temperature…"

"Boom the whole thing exploded. My genius." She reached up and pulled me to her as the collar clicked open, and bestowed a warm and passionate kiss that I returned for a bit until I remembered where we were and disentangled gently. She sat up shakily and tried the key in my collar.

"And I suppose you have some wonderfully ingenious explanation of how you killed these fiends?"

"Not dead yet, just unconscious. I filed one fingernail to a point sharp enough to scratch skin, then painted it with callanite."

"Of course! Invisible to the eye and it would take a spectrometric test to find the tiny trace. But more than enough to render the scratchee instantly unconscious. What next?"

"A phone call to get the rest of the operation going in case that explosion wasn't heard outside the building. But they have listening devices…"

Before I could finish the sentence the lights went out. Since the room had no windows we were in complete darkness and I was lost, falling, out of contact with reality.

"Angelina!" I called out, aware of the hoarseness of my voice. "I am juiced to the eyeballs with narco drugs that cut off almost all pain sensation, which is why I could polish off the guard even though he was jazzing me with his shock box. But this also means I can't feel anything at all—I'm completely numb. All I can do is hear in the darkness. You'll have to help."

"What should I do?"

"Find Kraj and drag him over to me. I'm going to see if we can't get him out with us."

She pulled him out from behind the desk, none too gently from the sounds I heard, and helped me get him up on my shoulders.

"Now lead us out of here. You'll have to guide me because I have no way at all of moving around in this darkness. Across to the other side of the hall, then left for about 45 meters until you come to the stairs. Then down, all the way."

Angelina took my hand and we were off. I slammed into a couple of things but that wasn't her fault since I still had no sense of touch. It was easier and faster in the hall where she could follow the wall with one hand. There were voices shouting in the distance as well as one or two satisfying screams. My exploding wardrobe was providing plenty of distraction, coupled with the electrical failure. Then, just as I was congratulating myself on how well things were going, the lights flickered and came back on dimly.

We stopped, frozen, blinking in the sudden illumination and feeling as though we were in the middle of a spotlit stage. There must have been at least a dozen people in sight.

But they were all ignoring us, involved in their own troubles, barely aware of each other. A uniformed fat official actually ran by us, eyes wide with fear after the explosion and the darkness, not even seeing us.

"The stairway, quick," I said and lumbered forward as fast as I could with Kraj bounding on my shoulders.

Of course it was too good to last. The emergency limits flickered and dimmed redly and seemed about to expire at any minute. A soldier coming towards us had enough time to look and to think about what he was seeing. It finally dawned on him that something was wrong and he raised his gaussrifle and shouted to us to stop.

Angelina had Kraj's pistol and she fired just once. The soldier folded and we were at the stairs—when the lights went out again and stayed out.

The stairs were difficult to maneuver, though some sensation was coming back and I could feel a certain amount. But I dropped Kraj once, we both laughed a little at this and rolled him down an extra step or two for good measure, and a moment later I fell against Angelina and almost toppled us both headlong. After this we went more carefully and one flight down someone spoke.

"We've been waiting to take you out. Just stand still."

It was a girl's voice, and not speaking Cliaandian, or Angelina would have blown the whole stairwell up. We waited and I felt someone's hands touching my head, putting on a pair of heavy glasses. Then I could see again, with everything in harsh contrast. They were infrared goggles and the girl who was waiting for us had a hand projector. We went down almost at a run after that, while she called on her com-radio. Taze was waiting at the foot of the stairs.

"We sent people up all the staircases to try and contact you. They are coming back now. This way."

They took Kraj from me. I couldn't feel any pain or fatigue, but I was sure from the way my muscles were vibrating that I would ache all over when the drug wore off. We went at a fast trot to the open mouth of the service tunnel.

"In," Taze ordered. "There are cars waiting at the other end."