The Running Man(67)

He got up and put his cup in the stainless steel sink. He picked up the Silex, holding it by its brown plastic handle, and carefully dumped the coffee down the drain. Tiny beads of condensation clung to the thick glass.

He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket and went back into the narrow corridor. He stepped into Donahue's compartment, carrying the Silex in one hand.

"Want some coffee?" Richards asked.

"No," Donahue said curtly, without looking up.

"Sure you do," Richards said, and swung the heavy glass pot down on Donahue's bent head with all the force he could manage.

MINUS 008 AND COUNTING

The effort ripped open the wound in his side for the third time, but the pot didn't break. Richards wondered if it had been fortified with something (Vitamin B-12, perhaps?) to keep it from shattering in case of high level turbulence. It did take a huge, amazing blot of Donahue's blood. He fell silently onto his map table. A runnel of blood ran across the plastic coating of the top one and began to drip.

"Roger five-by, C-one-niner-eight-four," a radio voice said brightly.

Richards was still holding the Silex. It was matted with strands of Donahue's hair.

He dropped it, but there was no chink. Carpeting even here. The glass bubble of the Silex rolled up at him, a winking, bloodshot eyeball. The glossy eight-by-ten of Cathy in her crib appeared unbidden and Richards shuddered.

He lifted Donahue's dead weight by the hair and rummaged inside his blue flight jacket. The gun was there. He was about to drop Donahue's head back to the map table, but paused, and yanked it up even further. Donahue's mouth hung unhinged, an idiot leer. Blood dripped into it.

Richards wiped blood from one nostril and stared in.

There it was-tiny, very tiny. A glitter of mesh.

"Acknowledge E.T.A. C-one-niner-eight-four," the radio said.

"Hey, that's you!" Friedman called from across the hall. "Donahue-"

Richards limped into the passage. He felt very weak. Friedman looked up. "Will you tell Donahue to get off his butt and acknowledge-"

CHAPTER TWENTY

Richards shot him just above the upper lip. Teeth flew like a broken, savage necklace. Hair, blood, and brains splashed a Rorschach on the wall behind the chair, where a 3-D foldout girl was spreading eternal legs over a varnished mahogany bedpost.

There was a muffled exclamation from the pilot's compartment, and Holloway made a desperate, doomed lunge to shut the door. Richards noticed that he had a very small scar on his forehead, shaped like a question mark. It was the kind of scar a small, adventurous boy might get if he fell from a low branch while playing pilot.

He shot Holloway in the belly and Holloway made a great shocked noise: "Whoooo-OOO!" His feet flipped out from under him and he fell on his face.

Duninger was turned around in his chair, his face a slack moon. "Don't shoot me, huh?" he said. There was not enough wind in him to make it a statement.

"Here," Richards said kindly, and pulled the trigger. Something popped and flared with brief violence behind Duninger as he fell over.

Silence.

"Acknowledge E.T.A., C-one-niner-eight-four," the radio said.

Richards suddenly whooped and threw up a great glut of coffee and bile. The muscular contraction ripped his wound open further, implanting a great, throbbing pain in his side.

He limped to the controls, still dipping and sliding in endless, complex tandem. So many dials and controls.

Wouldn't they have a communications link constantly open on such an important flight? Surely.

"Acknowledge," Richards said conversationally.

"You got the Free-Vee on up there, C-one-niner-eight-four? We've been getting some garbled transmission. Everything okay?"

"Five-by," Richards said.

"Tell Duninger he owes me a beer," the voice said cryptically, and then there was only background static.

Otto was driving the bus.

Richards went back to finish his business.

MINUS 007 AND COUNTING

"Oh dear God," Amelia Williams moaned.

Richards looked down at himself casually. His entire right side, from ribc; to calf, was a bright and sparkling red.

"Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?" Richards

McCone suddenly dashed through into first class. He took in Richards at a glance. McCone's gun was out. He and Richards fired at the same time.

McCone disappeared through the canvas between first and second class. Richards sat down hard. He felt very tired. There was a large hole in his belly. He could see his intestines.

Amelia was screaming endlessly, her hands pulling her cheeks down into a plastic witch-face.

McCone came staggering back into first class. He was grinning. Half of his head appeared to be blown away, but he was grinning all the same.

He fired twice. The first bullet went over Richards's head. The second struck him just below the collarbone.

Richards fired again. McCone staggered around twice in an aimless kind of dipsy-doodle. The gun fell from his fingers. McCone appeared to be observing the heavy white styrofoam ceiling of the first class compartment, perhaps comparing it to his own in second class. He fell over. The smell of burned powder and burned flesh was clear and crisp, as distinctive as apples in a cider press.

Amelia continued to scream. Richards thought how remarkably healthy she sounded.