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shadow passed over thick foliage, like a cloud across the moon. For a moment, he thought he saw a
glint of silver metal the Fantom's mask drawing deeper into hiding? He couldn't tell. "I know all about
your spy among us."
The Fantom's voice carried no surprise, only a condescending lilt. "Ah, do you?"
Quatermain took a shot toward the voice. He thought for a moment he had hit the Fantom, but the
shotgun pellets merely sprayed chipped white marble from the statue of a sorrowful stone angel.
The hunt continued, and the Fantom moved noiselessly through his domain of darkness, dressed all in
black. He chose when to speak, casting his voice like a ventriloquist. "You see yourself as the brave
John Bull but I know you're a coward, Quatermain. Hiding from the memory of your son's death."
As the hunter desperately searched for another target to shoot, the Fantom laughed, taunting. "You
should have trained him better. I am not the only failure here, Allan Quatermain. Your mistake was
much larger, wasn't it? You may have as well put the gun to the lad's head and pulled the trigger
yourself."
Quatermain started to react, then stopped and gritted his teeth. He refused to open fire indiscriminately.
He waited for a good shot, the right target.
"Oh, yes. I know all about you " Then the Fantom froze as his black shoe stepped on a dry branch,
cracking it. The sound echoed through the cemetery, as loud as a gunshot.
Quatermain searched for where it came from. "It's you who fears the mirror, sir and not, I think,
because of scars."
His eye caught another flicker of movement off to his right. Quatermain whirled, but saw that the
movement was merely a swaying branch. He did however see a subtle flash of motion to his left,
vanishing behind a tree. He eased forward, rifle extended. "It's because you are neither extraordinary "
Quatermain lunged around the trunk. " nor a gentleman!"
The shadow leaped back, and Quatermain drove in for the kill. The Fantom lashed out, knocking the
gun aside. Quatermain shot, a fraction too late. The Winchesters blast rang out, sending debris flying.
The Fantom collided with Quatermain, a long silver stiletto flashing in the moonlight. The blade came
down like a cobra striking, and he stabbed Quatermain deep in the shoulder.
With a roar, the old adventurer backhanded the villain and landed a blow that should have felled a water
buffalo. The Fantom reeled away, and his mask went skittering across the ground. Quatermain glimpsed
the hidden visage, expecting to see a disfigured horror. Instead, it was a shockingly familiar face.
The Fantom was M!
Quatermain's blow had scraped loose some of the half-hidden "scars" on the Fantom's face merely
lumps of wax and flesh-colored paste. Stage show makeup now hung half off the face.
"You? What the hell!"
"You don't know the half of it," M said. "Fool."
He spun with catlike agility, and kicked Quatermains' legs out from under him. As the old hunter fell
against a hard block of stone, the knife injury in his back pulsing with agony, M grabbed his fallen
silver mask from the ground and scrambled away.
Despite the deep stab wound, Quatermain was quick to recover. He ripped the stiletto from his shoulder,
ignoring the hot gush of blood. Out of reflex and long years of practice, he hurled the knife at the
receding villain.
The blade flew true and found its mark. The point sank into his back as he fled. He howled, staggered,
then sprinted away into the darkness. He must have been wearing the same damned body armor his
henchmen used.
Quatermain collapsed on the cemetary grounds quite an appropriate place after all, he thought as
the strength flowed out of him&
TWENTY NINE
The Ruins of Venice
The world leaders looked like drowned rats, expecting to die trapped within the sinking chamber. They
clung together on the drifting tabletop as if it were a life raft. The air smelled of fish and mud and far
less pleasant things.
As the shuddering explosions rattled into silence and the buildings stopped falling all around them, the
representatives of the most powerful countries of Europe sat in silence and wonder.
"Someone has stopped the disaster!" the representative from Italy said proudly. "No doubt it was one of
our brilliant Italian engineers."
"Perhaps your engineers should have designed a better escape route for us in the first place," the
Spanish ambassador grumbled. "Or a city that wouldn't fall apart so easily."
"Venetia is over a thousand years old, signore! She has survived a hundred armies "
"We will live," the German interrupted. "Now we must find a way to get out of here."
"I wish we had kept some of that wine." The Frenchman drew his skinny knees up to his chest and
looked miserable.
The Portuguese ambassador vomited over the edge of the swaying table.
"Perhaps we should simply swim under the water and out through the halls." The British representative
cracked his knuckles and practiced keeping a stiff upper lip. "I was on the swim team back at Oxford "
Like a walrus diving off an iceberg, the Russian plunged into the water and began to stroke with
surprising grace and power. He spat foul water out of his mouth. "Tastes like a sewer."
"Those, signore, are our canals," the Italian answered indignantly. He felt as if he was being insulted
from all sides.
But the gathered men understood that they were safe now, and it would be only a matter of time before
they were rescued. "I say, perhaps we should finish our discussions and come to an agreement?" the
Englishman suggested. "That way, in the end, we'll be able to call this little gathering an unqualified
success."
Inside the Nautilus rocket room, Ishmael and the crew cleaned up the aftermath of the destruction. The
air smelled of smoke from burned circuits and control panels. Puddles of water lay on the deck where
they had splashed. A few small trickles had made their way through stressed hull plates, like trails of
teardrops, but the loyal first mate and his men had already fixed the most vital problems. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]