Programmed for Peril

lust hadn’t yet subsided. He concentrated on finding the correct frequency. He found it, then nearly dropped the hand-held unit while reaching for the one to actually open the lock. He steadied himself, feeling half a continent out of place.
    When the mechanism clicked Dino said, “Step back!” His voice was a harsh croak. Nicholas pressed himself against the wall. Dino grabbed the knob, turned it. He swung the door wide.
    The only sound was Dino’s grunting breath.
    Nicholas looked over Dino’s shoulder. The apartment was dim, shades pulled down. It smelled musty, unused. He followed Dino inside. There was no furniture in the first room. “Nobody lives here!” Dino said angrily. “God-damnit!”
    In the middle of the next room stood a table. On it electronic equipment had been gathered. In an instant Nicholas knew what it was. Before he could speak Dino had lowered his shotgun. “Where are you, you scumbag coward?” he shouted.
    The weapon’s blast was deafening in the small room. Metal scraps and buckshot careened against the far wall. Some of the pellets ricocheted back. Nicholas winced and cowered.
    “Dino, no!”
    Too late! Too late. Dino fired twice more, blood lust high as flood tide. When the report echoed down to silence Nicholas rushed to the table. The equipment there had been destroyed as well as with a sledgehammer. His heart sank. Dino rushed ahead into the next room shouting and cursing. “Where are you? Come out so I can blow your friggin’ head off!”
    By the time he completed his search and returned to the middle room Nicholas knew exactly what had gone on here. “You made a big mistake blowing this equipment apart, Dino.”
    “Huh?”
    “Nobody ever lived here. Carson came in and set up these units to relay the signals from the PC-Pros’ bugs to wherever he’s really holed up. If they hadn’t been damaged, I could have used them to lead us to wherever he’s hiding. Thanks to you, they’re just useless scrap now.”
    “You sure you know what you’re talking about, worm neck?”
    “I’m afraid I do. This place was set up as a buffer between us and him—and it worked. The minute you fired he knew we were trying to track him. Now he runs.” Nicholas shrugged his thin shoulders. “And maybe we’ll never find him.” His annoyance had made him nearly eloquent, particularly so because his companion had behaved so stupidly. He was still intimidated by Dino, but now less so.
    Dino cursed in lumpish grunts. Spit flew from his lips. This man is a stupid reptile, Nicholas thought. Worse, quite possibly he is insane.
     

18
     
    “YES, MASTER. I UNDERSTAND. TERROR. YOU KNOW it’s unnecessary to repeat anything to me.” Champ listened a moment longer. Carson was so meticulous, so unwilling to entertain the possibility of error through oversight. “I hear and I obey!” He chuckled. A common joke of theirs.
    Yet...
    How perceptive Carson was! Could he have guessed that loyal Champ’s increasing determination to return Queen of My Heart to his master’s life had somehow distracted him from the next step? The nature of the distraction was unclear, even to Champ’s exalted intellect and lucid personal insights. While the illness was obscure, its symptoms were not. He had made oversights, little careless errors in carrying out his tasks that astonished him. He was also letting things slide. It had taken him several days to replace the PC-Pros’ bugs with more sophisticated ones after Nicholas Smith-Patton had removed them.
    That new bugs should be operated without a protective buffer seemed an error to him. The electronic road to Resurrection Headquarters was open, should someone like Nicholas resume his investigations. His unexpected appearance on the scene had distressed Champ. Not so Carson. No matter the spidery one’s unmistakable gifts, his master’s genius would triumph. Queen of My Heart and Melody would be returned to his side.
    Yet what of Champ’s distracted mental state, he, sole soldier under Colonel Carson’s command? What did it mean that when Carson told him to mail Tape Ten to the Loathed One he had momentarily balked? Balked! Then he realized he could easily make a copy. Till then he hadn’t recognized how greatly he coveted what the tapes showed: Queen of My Heart’s white, twisting limbs, glistening pink disclosures... As if to compensate for those few seconds of imagined loss, he was compelled to view all ten tapes sequentially. Dared he count the