Callsign: Bishop (Erik Somers) (Chesspocalypse #5)

The pain vanished, and Bishop rolled to the side just as the shot went off. The bullet tore a chunk of stone from the floor just to the left of Bishops head, sending rock fragments everywhere. A few chips of stone flew into his face, stinging but doing little damage.

The guard who’d been sitting on his back lost his balance and fell over into the spreading puddle of ergot-contaminated water. The other guard stood over Bishop, pistol in hand, as he adjusted his aim. No time to do anything fancy. Bishop launched a kick to the man’s groin that lifted him off the floor. The man grunted in pain as he fell to the stone, just missing the puddle that was even now lapping at Bishop’s shoes. His pistol clattered away, coming to a stop underneath a bank of computer equipment.

With a manic shriek, the guard who’d fallen in the puddle of ergot shot to his feet. He craned his head back and forth, looking at the room with wide, confused eyes, as though he’d just woken up from a nightmare. Then his eyes locked on Bishop. The man’s fingers curled. He was clearly mad, and about to attack, but it wasn’t the man’s physical prowess that gave Bishop pause, it was the fact that the man was dripping with Ergot-B.

If the man landed a punch, or even managed to scratch Bishop, he would descend into madness.

“Not again,” Bishop said. “Never again!”

The man charged.

Bishop sidestepped at the last moment and delivered a spinning kick to the man’s back, sending him spilling into the stone wall. The impact would have made any rational man think twice about continuing the fight, but this man couldn’t be talked down from his ergot-induced mania. He shoved himself up and charged again.

This time, Bishop didn’t sidestep. He needed to end this fight.

Permanently.

He stepped back, into the pool of Ergot-B, protected from its effect by the thick rubber soles of his boots. As the man closed the distance between them, Bishop pushed himself up between two of the big tanks and kicked out with the steel-toed tip of his boot. There was a crack, and he felt the man’s head cave a little beneath the force of the kick. The man crumpled like God had reached down and yanked his power cord from the wall.

Bishop lowered himself carefully and stepped out of the puddle, making a mental note to be very careful when he took off his boots. The other man stirred, pushing himself up. Bishop stopped, smashed his sledgehammer fist into the man’s head, knocking him out, and then ran toward the exit. Along the way, he saw his pistol lying on the stone floor, miraculously untouched by the ergot water. He reached down to pick it up.

He took off down the hall after Dawoud, having no clear idea where he was going. He couldn’t let the man get away, though. The information in the man’s head was too valuable. Abbasi was a terrorist leader, with knowledge of perhaps hundreds of active cells and their locations, possibly even their planned attacks. If he could bring him in, there was no telling how much they could learn from him. Not to mention it would give him a large amount of satisfaction to give the man a few good punches to the gut.

He caught a glimpse of Dawoud up ahead and sped up, dodging aside as a bullet pinged off the stone to his right. Dawoud fired two more shots, and Bishop returned fire. Then he turned the corner and ran up a hallway, catching sight of Dawoud again as the man ran through a doorway.

Bishop followed as fast as he could, but the pain in his shoulder and the loss of blood combined with the aftereffects of the drugs to slow him down. He wheezed and coughed, but kept running, even after he lost sight of Dawoud again. After a few minutes, his steps slowed. The passages of Naqsh e-Rustam were larger and more complex than he would have thought. He tried to remember where he was through the growing fog in his brain. Had he taken a right or a left back there? He couldn’t remember. He was completely turned around. Still, he kept going.

Dawoud could not escape. He would not allow it.

Bishop ran around a corner and slammed right into a person on the other side. Dawoud! He raised his pistol to fire, but it was knocked aside. He staggered back and raised his fists, ready to brawl with Dawoud if he needed to.

“Be calm, Somers,” a voice said. “We are here to help.”

Bishop took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Through a haze of pain and exhaustion, the person’s face came into focus. He looked familiar, but Bishop couldn’t quite place him. The man reached into his pocket and Bishop tensed, but he only pulled out a badge. “My name is Massai,” the man said. “Iranian Special Forces.”

Behind Massai, Bishop saw a man holding on to a squirming, cursing Dawoud Abbasi.

“That’s Ahmad,” Massai said. “We were supposed to meet you at the airport, but you got into a taxi and left with the Joker.”

Of course. The two men from Imam Khomeini. That’s where he knew them from. They must be the men that Deep Blue had sent. And they were never trying to kill him. Just Joker.

“You guys are Special Forces?” Bishop asked, wheezing.

Massai nodded.

Bishop sat down, breathing long and loud. “You guys suck,” he said.





15.