Stinger

Stinger Page 35

"Typhoid! Here, boy!" Mack Cade's voice was giving out from shouting, and at his side Lockjaw was whining and jumping in a jangle of nerves, stopping to fire rapid barks in the direction of the pyramid. Cade let the dog bark, hoping the sound would attract Typhoid.

There was no sign of the Doberman. Smoke from burning tires drifted slowly around him, and he walked through a dark wonderland of destruction. The .38, gripped in his right hand, was cocked and ready for whatever might be waiting.

each step took him deeper into the yard. He knew every inch of the place, and now he feared all of them. But Typhoid had to be found, or no amount of coke in the world would ease his brain tonight. The dogs were his friends, his good-luck charms, his bodyguards, his power translated into animal form. Screw humans, he thought. None of them were worth a shit. Only the dogs mattered.

He saw the black pyramid, its damp-looking plates washed with violet light, looming terrifyingly close, and he veered away from it. His polished Italian boots stirred up ashes and dust, and when he looked back he could no longer see any of the houses of Bordertown, just dark upon dark.

The yard's familiar buildings - its workshops and storage structures - had been flattened and blasted by the concussion and the explosion of drums of gasoline and lubricants. The sleek rebuilt Porsches, BMWs, Corvettes, Jaguars, and Mercedes that had been lined up ready for pickup and delivery to Cade's masters had been scorched, warped, and tossed like Tonka Toys.

My ass is grass, he thought. No: lower than grass. My ass is worm meat.

The troopers would come, eventually. Then the reporters. It was all over, and the sudden change of his fortunes unhinged him a little further. He'd always expected that if the end came it would be an undercover bust by the federals, or some wild-hair lawyer who decided the money wasn't enough, or one of the fringe players who sang to save his own skin. No scenario of disaster had ever had a sonofabitching black pyramid from outer space in it, and Cade figured that would be really funny if he were on the shore of a Caribbean island where there were no extradition treaties.

"Typhoid! Come on, boy! Please... come back!" he shouted. Lockjaw whined, nudged his leg, raced off a few yards, and then darted back to him.

Cade stopped. "It's you and me, buddy," he said to Lockjaw. "Us two against the world." Lockjaw yipped. a small sound.

"What is iti" Cade knew that sound: alarm. "What do you h - " Lockjaw growled, deep in his throat, and his ears lay back.

There was a splitting noise in the earth, like a seam of stone breaking. The sand swirled around Cade's boots like a whirlpool, and he was twisted around in a violent corkscrew motion. The ground beneath him collapsed, and his legs disappeared up to the knees.

He drew a sharp breath, tasted bitter smoke at the back of his throat. Something moist and lurching had his legs, was drawing him under. He was almost down to his waist within seconds, and he thrashed and screamed but his legs were held fast. Lockjaw was barking fiercely, running in circles around him. Cade fired into the ground, the bullet kicking up a spray of sand. Whatever had him continued to pull him down, and he kept firing until the bullets were gone.

The earth was up to his chest. Lockjaw darted in, and Cade's flailing arms grabbed the dog, pulled the Doberman against him, and tried to use its weight to pull himself free. Lockjaw scrabbled wildly, but the sand began to take the dog's body along with Cade's. He held on, and when he opened his mouth to scream again, sand and ashes filled it, slithering down his throat.

The man and his dog disappeared together. Mack Cade's Panama hat whirled in the eddies of the sand, then lay half buried as the earth's circular motion slowed and stopped.