The Jupiter Plague

Sam pushed him away. “I’ve changed my mind. You can crawl back inside…”

“Give it to him,” the deep voice said. Sam spun about as the big man came through the door behind them. He took a tape-wrapped length of pipe from inside his heavy pea jacket and slammed it against his palm. His ratty companion had produced a switchblade; the knife snapped open. Sam stepped backward away from them both, raising the bag before him.

“Hand it over, doc, because you got trouble,” ratface said.

Sam retreated again, banging his legs into a container of rubbish; he could back no further, they had him in a corner. He swung the bag back as though trying to keep it away from them.

“You can have it,” he said — then swung it hard into the knife-weielder’s face. The man screeched shrilly as he dropped, the knife clattering from his hand. Sam kept turning as the big man attacked.

Sam couldn’t avoid the club completely. It caught him hard on the right shoulder with a wave of agonizing, numbing pain. The bag dropped from his fingers as he staggered, almost falling. He saw the man draw his arm back for another blow, his thick neck exposed above the heavy jacket.

Sam used the weight of his turning body to jab the stiffened fingers of his left hand straight into the man’s throat.

It was a merciless and destructive blow. The big man gurgled in pain as he fell. Sam’s kick on the side of his head dropped him into merciful unconsciousness.

His companion had just grabbed the fallen knife when Sam stamped on his hand. His squeal of pain was silenced as Sam gripped him by the throat and squeezed hard.

The brief and deadly encounter had taken less than thirty seconds. Sam stood over the two unconscious bodies, gasping in breath after breath, fighting back the nausea from the pain in his shoulder. Nothing seemed to be broken, but the bruise was a wicked one. He massaged his arm as the numbness slowly ebbed away. As soon as he could he pulled off his jacket and dropped it to the ground. It was time to change his appearance; the policeman would surely have called in a description of him. With one hand it was a painful struggle to roll his assailant over and tear off the pea jacket. Police sirens wailed in the distance. With a final heave he pulled it off. Then he grabbed up his bag and stumbled off down the alleyway in the opposite direction, pulling on the jacket as he went.

The street at the end was empty. He hurried across it and into an equally repulsive alley on the other side. When he had gone three blocks without being seen he dropped into a black doorway to rest. The rain had stopped for the time being and he was almost comfortable.

For the moment. But still no closer to his goal. As his breathing slowed and his heart stopped laboring he forced himself to make some kind of plan.

The jitter was still the best bet. There had been one — there should be more. If he worked his way uptown, out of sight of the tunnel, he would be ready for any others that came along from either direction. A simple and obvious plan but all he could think of at the moment.

Surprisingly enough it worked at first try. He was just coming to the corner as the light turned to red and the jitter squealed to a stop. Although there were no other vehicles in sight the well-trained military driver still braked for the light. The light changed to green as Sam ran forward. “Wait, over here!” he called out.

The driver automatically hit the brakes when he heard the shout. The officer sitting next to him turned quickly, his.75 recoilless machine pistol pointed at Sam.

“I’m a doctor!” Sam called, waving the black bag. Perhaps it might help. The officer said something out of the side of his mouth and the machine wheeled around in a tight circle and rolled toward Sam. The muzzle of the gun stayed trained on him.

“What do you want?” the officer asked, a young second lieutenant, hard and thin, but still young.

Sam looked at the lieutenant’s shoulder patch, the familiar battered dove with an olive branch in its beak and a crutch tucked under its wing, and he couldn’t help smiling.

“You’re with the Fifth Airborne so you must know Cleaver Burke…”

“Are you referring to General Burke? Make it fast, what do you want?” The lieutenant poked the gun in Sam’s direction. He was tired and on edge. And Sam had to convince him quickly; a police car might pass at any moment and would certainly stop to see what was happening this close to the tunnel. He leaned closer to the lieutenant with his face expressionless as he spoke through his barely open mouth.

“General Burke is ‘Cleaver’ to his friends, Lieutenant — but only to close personal friends. Do you understand that? I want you to bring him a message from me.” Sam opened his bag and reached for a pad of prescription forms, ignoring the gun that swung to cover his movements.

“Why should I bring any messages for you…”

“Because I’ve asked you to, and Cleaver is waiting for this message — and just what do you think would happen to you if Cleaver didn’t get it?”