“Steady on, lad. What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Its’-it’s your friends, Mr. Hunter.” Johnny gasped for breath. “Andre and the others. I–I can’t find them anywhere! I-have to-”
“Easy, lad, easy, get your breath back first,” said Hunter.
“Hold it right there. Hunter!” said a voice from the darkness. “Don’t move or the boy gets it!”
Two men with drawn weapons came walking out of the darkness. They both looked a little out of breath. As they came closer, Hunter saw that they were dressed in colonial clothing, but holding laser pistols, Network men. They must have picked the kid up at his old place and followed him. Johnny glanced up at him with fear and uncertainty.
“All right, hands out from your sides, very slowly, and clasp them on top of your head,” one of them said. Hunter did as he was told. Looking at him fearfully, Johnny did the same.
“Get lost, kid.” the other Network man said.
Johnny didn’t move: “Didn’t you hear me’?” the man repeated. “I said get lost! Run! Get out of hem!”
“No,” said Johnny. “No, It-I will not run. I have my duty!”
“Stupid kid. You want to die? I said, get out of here!”
“Do as he says,” Hunter said.
“No. No, I will not leave you like a coward.”
“Damn it, Johnny.” Hunter said, “don’t be a fool. Get out of here! Run!”
“No, I won’t run away!”
“Have it your way, kid,” the Network man said, aiming his pistol at Johnny.
“Drop your weapons, now!”
The Network men spun around and Neilson’s pistol coughed rapidly, four times. The first shot from the Colt took one of the men right between the eyes. The second shot struck the other man’s gun hand and he cried out as he dropped the laser, then the third and fourth shots struck each of his kneecaps dead center, knocking his legs out from under him as if someone had yanked the street out from beneath his feet. He fell to the ground, moaning with pain. Hunter hadn’t even had the time to draw his gun.
Neilson ran up and quickly stuffed a handkerchief into the wounded man’s mouth, jamming it in deeply. The man started to gag. He was already in shock. Neilson picked up the laser pistol the second man had dropped and tucked the Colt into his waistband.
“Jesus Christ.” said Hunter. flabbergasted. “Priest said you were lightning with a gun, but… Jesus! Where the hell did you learn to shoot like that?”
Johnny stood, speechless, staring at Neilson with astonishment.
“Practice.” Neilson said. “Lots and lots of practice.” He pulled a disruptor out from underneath his coat. He aimed it at the dead man and fired a stream of neutrons. The corpse was briefly wreathed in the blue glow of Cherenkov radiation, then it disappeared.
“Let’s get out of here.” he said, nervously glancing up at the surrounding windows. It had all taken merely seconds, and fortunately, there hadn’t been much noise. “Come on. We’ll have to take him with us,” he said, nodding toward Johnny as he adjusted his warp disc to a wider pattern.
Johnny didn’t understand what had happened. The stringer had fired his peculiar pistol four times, with astonishing accuracy and impossible speed, all without reloading, and it had barely made a sound. And then he had somehow made the dead man’s body disappear without a trace in that strange blue glow that came from that even stranger, second weapon. He was still trying to take it all in when Hunter brought him up to stand close beside Neilson and the wounded man and the next thing Johnny knew, he was no longer standing in the middle of the street outside Ebenezer Macintosh’s house, but in the center of a room somewhere, in a completely different place, and he was feeling nauseous and dizzy. He gasped and looked around him wildly, and then his eyes rolled up and he fainted. Hunter just barely managed to catch him before he hit the floor.
Moffat was missing. Drakov didn’t have to wonder where he was. He would never have had the nerve to take all somewhere on his own without first asking permission and saying precisely where he was going and when he would return Both he and the female were like servile dogs in that respect, thought Drakov, falling all over themselves to attend him. Moffat’s disappearance could only mean one thing. The Time Commandos had him, which meant there was no question of returning to the house on Newbury Street. It was no longer secure.
Moffat would hold out against interrogation for a while, but they were sure to break him, as Drakov had intended that they should. He knew that people always valued something a great deal more when they had to work for it and they would have to work to break down Moffat, but break him down they would, and then they would believe him when he talked-as Moffat would, of course, believe himself-when the fact was that neither of the hominoids knew what the real mission was. They believed the plan was merely to kill Samuel Adams, the revolution’s Grand Incendiary, as Thomas Hutchinson had christened him, but if the Hellfire Club succeeded in assassinating Adams, which was entirely possible, it would only be an added bonus. But though it was part of what Drakov intended to accomplish, he did not need Adams dead to achieve what he had planned.
The hominoids had served their purpose. Moffat would distract the Time Commandos and by the time they realized their mistake. it would be too late for them to do a thing about it.
Steiger heard the door open and, slowly raised his head, staring at the newcomer through swollen eyes. He was dressed in well-tailored, elegant colonial, clothing with a silk brocade waistcoat and lace at the throat and cuffs. He heard the man expel his breath sharply as he saw him.
“Jesus Christ.” he said, staring at Steiger. “What the hell is going on here? What did you do to him?”
“Softened him up a little,” said the other man, still wearing the black leather gloves he’d donned to administer the beating.
“What for?’ said the man who’d just come through the door.