The Fraternity of the Stone (41 page)

But guessing, and second-guessing, and triple-guessing, were part of the hunt. Mike might anticipate Drew's logic. He might assume that Drew, having started toward the left, as a feint, would then switch direction. Eventually, no matter what logic either opponent used, there was no way for one or the other to anticipate in which direction the hunt would begin. To think about it too long would lead to paralysis.

Arbitrarily, Drew decided to keep going left. With agonizing slowness. Shifting his arms, his hands, testing the darkness. Gently moving his feet.

The floor, like the hallway outside, was earth. But at least the dirt was packed solid, absorbing his weight as he slowly eased his foot down. No crunch communicated his position.

He paused again, listened, smelled, sensed. Again he tested the darkness with his hands and slowly crept a few inches farther to his left.

Gingerly moving his feet, he stiffened as the edge of his left shoe touched an object. Almost imperceptible pressure against his left leg and hip warned him that the object was large, but when he moved his left hand in its direction, he felt nothing. Whatever it was, the object rose no higher than his waist. When he lowered his hand to that level, he felt wood, gouged and battered, heavily grained, somewhat oily.

A workbench. Silently exploring with his hand, he felt a metal vice clamped onto the side of the bench. A pockmarked pair of pliers. A gritty oil can with a spout.

From now on, the complications multiplied. For all he knew, Mike was waiting on the other side of the workbench, ready to attack as Drew inched around the bench to return to the wall. Or maybe Mike was directly across from him, against the opposite wall, and as soon as he sensed that Drew's attention was fully occupied with the problem of getting around the bench...

Second-guessing, triple-checking. As Drew began to ease around the table, he imagined Mike's thoughts.

Hey, Drew, it's just like back in Colorado, when we were rivals. Sure, we looked so much alike everybody wondered which of us was better, didn't they? But we never settled the issue. Not to my satisfaction. Of course, the higher-ups had their own stupid idea that you were better than me. Otherwise, they wouldn't have chosen me to act as a double for you instead of the other way around. You were the star; I was the stand-in. Shit. But I outlasted you. You're supposed to be dead. I got to take your place. I became you, and I like it that way just fine. I won't switch places again. I won't go back to being second-best. This time, I plan to make damned sure you stay dead.

His muscles aching from tension, Drew inched through the darkness around the bench. But to check out the corner between the bench and the wall, he'd have to leave himself partly vulnerable to an attack from across the pitch-black room. He sharpened his senses, on guard against the slightest sound or shift in the dense, still air.

Subtly, silently, he waved his left hand in front of him, toward the continuation of the wall. He wanted to cause a gentle waft of air that might make Mike think Drew was closer than he was, that might prompt Mike to attack prematurely from the corner of the wall and the bench.

But no attack came, and as Drew eased around the other side of the workbench, coming closer to the wall, he aimed his Mauser toward it. If Mike indeed were hiding there, if he attacked, Drew would shoot as soon as he felt Mike's body.

But nothing happened. And with a mental exhalation of relief, Drew reached the wall, pressing his back against it again. He waited in the darkness, mustering energy, concentrating.

"Discipline," Hank had told them. "Patience. Those are the secrets to winning this game. One thoughtless move. One careless gesture. That's all it takes, and you're dead. You have to ignore the future. You can't let yourself imagine how good it'll feel to win and leave the room and relax. Because now is what counts, and if your enemy's concentrating on now while you're in the future, well, pal, you'll never see the future. You'll be history."

Drew continued to shift along the wall to his left. As before, he used his feet, the side of his leg and hip, to test for obstacles. Aiming the Mauser with his right hand, he moved his left hand before him, almost caressing the dark. His silent foot touched an object to his left; indeed, he sensed that the object was there even before his shoe touched it. The object was wood. It projected sixteen inches into the room. He felt it with his left hand. The object rose all the way to the ceiling. And when he eased his fingers around its side, he touched cold circular metal. Paper, wrapped around it, was partly peeled away. Here, the odor of turpentine was stronger. A paint can? Yes, he decided. Ceiling-high shelves of paint cans. Keeping his back against the shelves as if they were the wall, he continued to his left.

He'd progressed no more than ten or twelve feet and had been in here for possibly forty minutes, maybe longer. It was hard to know. In a black room, time was distorted by the agonizing slowness of movement. Every second seemed eternal. Terribly full.

Breath held, he came to the end of the shelves, felt around them toward the wall, but touched another wall instead. It extended to his left. He tested that corner.

With alarming abruptness, something hit the shelves to his right. The object clattered down, thumping onto the floor.

Drew flinched. He couldn't help it. His heart expanding as if it would burst, he fought not to gasp. In fact, he made no sound at all. Instead, as his training spurred him, he crouched reflexively - so low that his hips touched the back of his legs. With his back wedged into the corner, he raised his hands, his Mauser aimed.

The reaction was so instantaneous that even before the object had finished thumping onto the floor he was ready.

Mike might be attacking. That had been one of Hank Dalton's tactics. Startle your opponent. Throw something. The moment it clatters, take the advantage. Go for him.

But as silence again filled the room, as the stillness once more gelled, Drew felt no impact, no body charging into him. He waited, his stomach contracting, his nerves stretched taut.

Nothing happened.

He tried to calculate the direction from which the object had been thrown. Couldn't. But at least he knew that Mike was in here, that his lookalike had not ducked out an unseen exit before Drew entered this room.

Most surely now, this was to the death.

But something else bothered him. Why hadn't Mike attacked? Drew debated, tense, deciding.

Because Mike hasn't figured out where I am. In the dark, if he rushes me but misjudges my location, he knows I can kill him. He threw something toward where he thought I might be and hoped that I'd lose control, that I'd make a sound. But because he missed, he'll throw something else. If he hits me, as soon as he hears the impact against my body, he'll assume I'm distracted, and he'll attack.

Another Hank Dalton strategy.

As Drew crouched with his back to the corner, facing the dark of the room, a second object struck the shelves on his right. The clatter was nearer, sending a vibration against Drew's shoulder.

But this time Drew had expected the noise. He took advantage of the object's fall to shift toward the left along this new wall.

Sure, Mike decided I moved in this direction. He's trying to box me in. The moment he hits me, he'll rush.

A third object whacked against the corner where Drew had been crouching. Again he took advantage of the sound to shift a little farther along this new wall.

And now he had more information. The deflecting angle of the various objects, the direction of their sound when they hit the earthen floor, told him that Mike was on the far side of the room, probably in the corner opposite to the one in which he himself had just been crouching.

Or at least Mike had probably been there a moment ago. For all Drew could tell, his double had taken advantage of the clatter to shift position as Drew had.

In which direction would Mike have shifted, though? Toward the wall Drew was following - to meet Drew head on? Or toward the wall Drew first had crept along - to come at him from behind?

Drew wondered if he should reverse his direction. A flip of a coin. A fifty-fifty chance. They could go on like this, double- and triple-guessing, all night. He imagined them circling the room forever.

A fourth object clattered. But this time, it rebounded off the wall Drew first had crept along, thumping onto the floor.

Does Mike think I've doubled back? Or is he trying to trick me into thinking that's what he thinks?

As Hank Dalton had repeatedly stressed, that was the point of the exercise. To confuse your opponent until his mind was tired, off-balance.

And then to kill him.

"The rules. Trust them. Depend on them," Hank had demanded. "It took me almost twenty-five years to discover them. And they're one reason I'm still alive."

But as Hank had pointed out, few other warriors knew those rules. In actual combat, one of Hank's students shouldn't need to exhaust himself, stalking an opponent. Because Hank's system of fighting in the dark wasn't standard training anywhere else. "Remember," he'd said, "you've got the advantage. Don't be overconfident. But don't feel overwhelmed. Because, if you follow the rules, you've got a better-than-even chance of winning."

Sure, Drew thought. Just follow the rules. But listen, Hank, tell me this. What do you do when your opponent also knows the rules? Back in Colorado, I had an awful lot of stalemates with him. He not only looks like me. He's been trained like me. What's to prevent another stalemate? Except that this time the stalemate must be broken. And exhaustion will probably do it. Since the monastery, I've been running too long. If stamina's the deciding factor, I'll probably lose.

He didn't panic. Instead, as his spine tingled, he had a sudden inspiration. What do you do when you're up against someone who also knows the rules?

Do the completely unexpected. Break the rules. Go back to the way you behaved when you first entered that black room in the hangar in Colorado. Circle the room, follow its wall, the way Hank insisted? No. Go straight across. Crouch in the middle and wait for Mike to throw again.

And then, when you sense exactly where he is, go after him.

His shoes seemed not to touch the earthen floor as he crept silently toward the middle of the room. He maintained his slow careful pace, shifting his left hand before him while he aimed the Mauser with his right, testing the dark.

And when he judged that he'd reached the middle of the room, he hunkered down, resting as comfortably as possible on his haunches while he waited for Mike's next move.

He felt the shift of air from the object as it hurtled past him, only inches above his head, cracking against the wall he'd been following. There. In the opposite corner. Drew inched closer.

Another object whipped air past his head, whacking the wall behind him.

Drew inched even closer.

It happened with startling suddenness. Drew sensed an obstacle abruptly in front of him. He didn't touch it. No, as Hank Dalton had insisted, he didn't need to touch it. If he was alert enough, he'd actually be able to feel the vibrations coming off it.

The obstacle was a man.

Mike, who looked like Drew, who'd been trained the same as Drew, also thought like Drew. Mike, as well, had debated how to stalk an opponent who had the same advantage of Hank Dalton's training, who could anticipate.

Because of the rules. So break the rules.

And with unexpected abruptness, Drew found himself grappling chest-to-chest, face-to-face, with his double.

The shock was sickening. As they stumbled one way, then the other, Drew no longer feared making noise. Instead, he breathed stridently, desperately needing oxygen, pushing, straining against the man he held and who held him.

He groaned from a knee that struck his thigh, barely missing his testicles.

He winced as he lurched back against the sharp edge of the workbench, hitting his kidneys.

"Mike... "

He rammed the heel of his left palm into his attacker's solar plexus.

Mike groaned.

"For God's sake, listen... "

Drew gasped from a crushing blow to the side of his neck.

"We have to talk!"

But when the blunt edge of a screwdriver tore -shockingly, oh, blessed Jesus - into Drew's left shoulder, his coat buffering the damage, he understood that Mike was determined to win.

What choice did Drew have?

He shoved Mike away and squeezed his finger on the Mauser's trigger.

Shot.

And shot.

He emptied the magazine, his ears stunned by the repeated blasts, his eyes offended by the muzzle flashes.

Yet despite the various injuries to his body, he spread his bullets skillfully. And when he heard a bullet hit home, he narrowed his aim, his nostrils flaring from the acrid stench of cordite and flashburns, scorched fabric and flesh.

He blew his lookalike to Hell.

As blood pelted onto the earthen floor, as it splattered warm and salty across his lips, he felt Mike lunge against him once more, still determined to keep up the battle. But Mike shuddered in death. The two men embraced each other, almost as lovers.

Mike sank toward the floor, his flaccid jaw sagging past Drew's chest, stomach, groin, and knees.

"Why didn't you listen?" Drew whispered, though he wanted to shriek. Damnable discipline kept him in control. "You should have listened. All you had to do was tell me who you were working for. You stupid... You'd still be alive. Maybe finally, we could have been friends instead of... "