"Where can I find Werner von Rausch?"
"Yes, Werner. Poor boy." Heinrich was calm again. "You'll have to do your duty, officer. He's been annoying me all afternoon. So much noise—a man can't think. He's in his shop at the end of the hall. But don't be too severe with him. Perhaps this time just a warning will make him see reason."
Hunter went back to the corridor, feeling again the shadow of horror at this sick distortion of reality. In the distance, beyond the metal fence, he heard the scream of sirens, and realized he had at best another three minutes before the police would be there. Three minutes to make a deal with Werner and save Ann.
Hunter pushed back the nightmare that welled up from the depths of his mind. It wasn't true; it couldn't be true. If it were, nothing in the jungle made sense.
VIII
As he felt his way along the hall, he passed the cage of a lift, a private transit between the house and the cartel offices on the city levels below. He noted it subconsciously, as a possible means of escape. But he was through running. He could make a deal with Von Rausch. After that the police wouldn't matter.
At the end of the corridor he came upon a paneled door. Behind it he could hear the hum of a motor, and knew that he had found Werner's shop, and the source of the noise that had disturbed Heinrich's research.
Hunter flung open the door. The light was bright and gay. On the floor, a fat old man sat hunched over the remote control console of a toy monorail system. Toy space liners and fighting ships buzzed in the air.
"Werner von Rausch?" Hunter whispered.
"You've come to play with me!" The fat, old man flashed the cherubic smile of a child. "And you brought me a blaster. Oh, let me see it! Let me see it!"