Labyrinth by Jon Land

sides of his mouth. His face was ghastly pale, his eyes were darting. Charney was dying.
    Locke took his friend’s head in his lap.
    â€œI’m sorry, Chris” came the raspy mutter. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”
    â€œDon’t talk.” Locke could think of nothing else to say.
    â€œI know how … bad I’m hurt. There are more important things now. Lubeck knew. It’s why they killed him.” Suddenly Charney grabbed Locke’s lapel. His eyes blazed. “They must be stopped!”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThey’re everywhere, everything. Lubeck saw. Lubeck knew. The world will be theirs if they’re not stopped.”
    â€œWho?”
    Charney’s eyes drifted. His grasp slipped from Locke’s coat, his fingers dangled in the air. “I set you up, old buddy, and then someone else did. Alvaradejo had to die, the other … links too.” Charney coughed up a stream of blood. “Oh, God, my kids! What about my kids?”
    â€œI’ll go the American Embassy and tell them everything. I’ll tell them everything!” Locke promised.
    But Charney’s eyes flashed alive and his grasp tugged tight again. “No. Mustn’t. Trust no one. Don’t … know … how deep this goes. They murdered a whole town so no one would know.”
    â€œKnow what?”
    It was obvious Charney was incoherent and rambling. What was giving him the strength to go on, Locke couldn’t imagine.
    â€œLiechtenstein,” he muttered, breath failing. “Felderberg was Lubeck’s next stop, Felderberg the broker. Find him, find him!” Charney shifted slightly. “My pocket …”
    Locke pulled a bloodstained sheet of paper from his dying friend’s jacket. He could make out writing.
    â€œGo to Cornwall. Find Burgess. He’ll … get … you—”
    That was it. Charney died. The last of his breath poured out in a wisp, as if a vacuum had sucked him dry. His eyes locked open and sightless. Locke eased his head onto the carpet. He wanted to collapse and cry for himself as well as his friend, give up and just sit for a while. But he couldn’t. Whoever had killed Charney was close, in the hotel by now almost surely, coming to the room perhaps. Locke had to act fast but his mind wouldn’t cooperate.
    It was too much. Memories of the horrible accident twenty-two years before filled his head, of watching helplessly as the doctors lifted an unconscious Lubeck onto a stretcher and tore away the field dressing to reveal the mangled remains of his hand. It was a nightmare he couldn’t wake from and now the nightmare had returned. He had seen one friend crippled and another killed. Both were dead, and he was so goddamn alone… .
    But he had to act! Survival called out to him, Brian Charney called out to him, the training from long before called out to him.
    They‘re everywhere, everything… .
    Who had Charney been talking about?
    Locke’s mind craved release. He focused on escape, on survival. He had no passport, little money. All he had was an address.
    He looked at the tattered, bloodied sheet of paper Charney had given him and read it quickly: Colin Burgess, Bruggar House, Cadgwith Cove, Cornwall.
    Chris struggled to recall his knowledge of English geography. Cadgwith Cove was located on a stretch of land called the Lizard at England’s southwesternmost tip. Accessible easily by train. First he would need a cab to get him to the station.
    He was getting ahead of himself, though. His clothes were bloodied and demanded changing before he set out. He stripped off the ruined ones he had on, grabbed a fresh set from the floor and changed quickly, tucking all his remaining money in a pocket along with Charney’s paper. He started for the door, glancing at his friend’s corpse one last time. There should have been something else he could do for him. Letting him lie there didn’t seem right, but