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"This is going to take good timing," he said to Saavedra, who held a knife in one hand. "When I give the word..."
The plaza became a hell of noise. The entire front of the building seemed to blaze. But Broward was already pulling his head down when the hail came and the jeep began to shake. Bullets went whing! zeeee! past them; explosive bullets struck the body of the shield and bent it over towards the men.
Quiroga had locked the controls and slipped from the seat to the hood, unhindered because there was no windshield. Saavedra and Broward, crouching, followed him beneath the shelter of irradiated plastic that formed the vehicle's body.
Broward peered through the opening between the shield and the hood. "Slow it down!" he shouted to Quiroga, who held the controls in his hands. The shaft, capable of being telescoped and very flexible, was bent forwards over the hood.
The jeep checked, and the men slid against the frame of the shield. Broward's head banged into a tire; for a second he almost blacked out.
Then, the three were pressed against the frame; the jeep had rammed into the building. Saavedra slashed at the strips of sheet that held one end, then slid the knife over to Broward. He grabbed at it, it struck his hand, and dived off the hood onto the ground. Without thinking, he jumped off the hood, picked up the knife, and leaped back onto the hood. Explosive bullets, striking the rock floor, threw chips 'of stone like sharpnel and zinged off the hood.
He felt something sharp hit his face, put his hand up, and it came away with blood. But he used the other hand to slash at the strips holding down his end of the shield. In the meantime, the others, weightless because of their gravpaks, were clinging to the underside of the shield. It rose, pulled upwards by the counterdrive of the paks attached to it Broward sprang up and grabbed hold of a jeep wheel, his momentum sending the vehicle more quickly upwards.
Clinging to the underside like a baby Martian spider to its mother, Broward looked down. They were just above the top row of windows. Now, the men should be ru
"Use your paks!" he screamed. "Up and over!" They soared above the ascending jeep, corrected their controls, and were on the root.
Broward had been afraid that men would be up there. If so the three would be helpless targets. But there was no one there. Not yet. He landed, flipped oft the pak power, and turned to the others.
Quiroga was all right. Saavedra was not there.
He followed the line indicated by the young officer's pointing finger. Saavedra was still rising towards the ceiling of the cave. His head lolled; blood spurted out of the hole created when his knee had been blown off.
Quiroga crossed himself and then began, with Broward, to look for entrances on the roof to the story below. But there were none.
Broward cursed and then said, "That figures. He wouldn't want an assassin using the same approach as us."
"What do we do?" Quiroga said. "They'll be putting on paks and coming up after us in a minute."
Broward looked up at Saavedra's body, now pressed against the ceiling of the cave, and at the jeep, still rising.
"I'd say we've had it. But we're still alive. Maybe..."
Quiroga, who was facing the wall of rock at the rear of the building, shouted and fired his burper. Broward whirled and saw that a section of the rock, just above the juncture of the building and wall, had moved outwards.
He jumped to one side to be out of sight of anyone on the other side of the half-opened door. Quiroga fired another burst and then ran over alter Broward. The Moonman stopped by the door, fell to the root, shoved his gun under the door and into the opening beyond. He squeezed the trigger and did not release it until he had loosed at least thirty explosive bullets, as indicated by the tiny counter on the barrel.
Quiroga leaped through the opening as soon as the shooting stopped. Broward rose, hesitated a moment, then, hearing nothing, went around the rock-door. The lieutenant was standing inside an open bait-cage, which, in turn, was in a shaft hollowed out of the rock, The only light came from a lamp mounted on a thin pole on one side of the cage. This was mounted on a gravity-unit.
The cage and the walls of the shaft around it, however, were spattered with blood and covered with gobbets of flesh. The stream of explosive bullets poured in by Broward had literally blown the Angels apart. The head of one was missing; it had been knocked over the cage and down into the shaft or else had disintegrated.
Broward said, "Let's get what's left of them out of here. Lucky tor us we didn't destroy the controls."
Part of the plastic rails around the cage had been shattered and there were dents in the floor, but this was the only damage. Before starting to clear out the remains, Broward looked above them and also peered over the edge, for there was some space between the cage and the shaft. Darkness above and below.
"I think that Howards may have prepared this for a secret getaway," he said. "He probably sent these men up to get us from the rear. Maybe nobody else knows."
They dumped the legs and arms and torsos over and kicked bits of flesh and bone down the shaft. Then Broward pulled on the grips fastened to the back of the door and swung it in.
"If the men that'll be coming after us from the outside don't know about this shaft, they're going to be mightily puzzled."
"Yes, but when they report to Howards," Quiroga said, "he'll know soon enough what's happened."
Broward hesitated. Up? Or down? If they descended, they might catch Howards by surprise and kill or capture him. This did not seem very likely. Although Howards did not like many people close to him, he made sure that his bodyguards were not too far off. Still, it might be worth taking a chance. The only drawback was that, even if they did get to Howards, they would surely be killed afterwards. Then, the bomb would come.
Besides, he was very curious about where the upper part of the shaft led.
Either way, he had to do something fast. It was possible that Howards might be able to cut off the power to the cage by remote control.
He tested the button marked with an arrow pointing upward, and the cage began moving up. There was a little wheel by the two buttons; he turned it to the right and the cage picked up speed. Rotating the wheel to the left slowed it down until it was crawling. The button marked A (for alto. "halt" he supposed) stopped the cage.
Having mastered the controls, he resumed upward progress at full speed. Quiroga turned the lamp, which was
on a joint, so that it shone straight above them. A minute passed, and Quiroga said, "I think we've passed the second level." A few seconds later, he said, "We should be about even with the top of the first level. Do you think this goes to the surface?"
"We'll find out soon enough. There's the end of the shaft."
They rose to the opening. Before reaching it, the cage had begun to slow down without operation of the controls. It stopped, and the two men got off.
They were in a well-lighted place, one large enough to hold several of the type of the four-seater spaceship that it did contain. The chamber was hollowed out of granite and, beside the craft, had several cots, a tank of water, a large box full of provisions, ca
"You know how to handle the controls?" the Moonman said. "They're unfamiliar to me."
The lieutenant examined the control panel, shook his head, and said, "This one can't be activated unless you have the key. Guess who has that"