The Armageddon Machine

by Mike Ramon

Chapter Seventeen

  London, UK

  June 5 -- 09:13 UTC/10:13 am local time

  Kwon Hyun-kyoon lay in bed watching a morning news program on the television hanging in the corner of the hospital room. He was still in considerable pain, but it wasn’t blinding, as it had been in the first couple of days after waking up in a hospital in Manchester. At least now they had him hooked to a morphine drip. That first day awake they had denied him any pain meds, and he remembered that day as one long stretch of red, searing pain.

  Now he was in London, under the protection of some government agency he had never heard of before; he remembered that the acronym was SOIC (which the official-looking man who had informed him of his protected status had pronounced “so-ick”). The morphine was set up to enter his system in a slow, steady drip, but he also had a button he could press to up the dosage when the pain got particularly bad. The doctors had assured him that it was impossible to overdose on the drug, as there were safety features built in to prevent such an accident.

  Agent Blackburn set the newspaper he was reading down on the table next to Kwon’s bed and stood up, stretching out his legs. He looked up at the television briefly before walking over to the bathroom and slipping inside. Kwon could hear the splashing noise as Agent Blackburn relieved his bladder. Kwon thought Blackburn was an all right guy, even if he was a little stuffy. On the television the news program took a break to run an advertisement for women’s perfume.

  There was a knock on the door before the door swung open. Agent Hassani peeked in from the hall. He looked towards the empty chair that Agent Blackburn had just vacated, then towards the bathroom as he heard the sound of the toilet flushing. Agent Hassani stepped into the room carrying a cardboard drink tray that had four slots; two of the slots were empty, and the other two had Styrofoam cups pressed down into them. He walked to the table near the bed, moved Agent Blackburn’s paper to the chair and set the tray down, pausing to pull one of the cups free.

  “Nothing for you, I’m afraid,” Agent Hassani said to Kwon. “Doc says no coffee for you.”

  The bathroom door opened and Agent Blackburn came out.

  “Coffee?” Agent Blackburn asked when he saw Agent Hassani carrying his cup to the door.

  “Yeah; yours is right over there.”

  Agent Hassani pointed to the tray.

  “Thanks,” Agent Blackburn said.

  “No worries.”

  Agent Hassani took up his post out in the hallway, closing the door behind him. Agent Blackburn folded the newspaper up and slid it back onto the table beside the tray, then grabbed the remaining cup and took a seat. He took off the lid and set it aside, steam wafting out of it.

  “What’s new in the news?” Agent Blackburn asked, nodding his head towards the television, which was once against broadcasting the news program.

  “Nothing. Always nothing new.”

  “You can say that again. It’s always the same old shit wrapped up in a shiny new package.”

  He took a sip of coffee and winced at the bitterness.

  “Fucking hell, it’s pure black,” Agent Blackburn said. “I hate it like that.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Hassani, you had better be coming back with some sugar, you prick,” Agent Blackburn called in response.

  The door pushed open. It was a doctor, not Agent Hassani. The doctor was wearing a matching blue scrub hat and surgical mask.

  “Sorry doc, I thought you were someone else.”

  One of the doctor’s hands was behind his back. Now he brought it out from behind, raised it, and there was the sharp pop as he fired a small silencer-tipped pistol. Agent Blackburn dropped his coffee, the steaming contents spilling down one leg and onto the white tile of the hospital room floor. His head went back until it was resting on the back of the chair, his wide unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling. There was a neat little hole in the center of his forehead. The “doctor” swung the muzzle in Kwon’s direction, pulled down the surgical mask and put one finger to his lips.

  “Shh!”

  Kwon obeyed the universal command, remaining silent. He thought he remembered the man, but could not remember where from. His mind was a little hazy from the pain meds. The doc leaned out into the hall, the pistol still pointed at Kwon, and looked around quickly. He leaned down and came back into the room, dragging Agent Hassani after him. Hassani had a hole in his forehead that matched the one in Agent Blackburn’s. The doc let go of Agent Hassani and shut the door. He walked to the television and turned the volume up, then came over to stand beside the bed. Kwon Hyun-kyoon stared up at the man with wide, frightened eyes. He saw that the man had Asian features. He figured him for a fellow Korean, and so spoke to him in Korean.

  “What do you want from me?” Kwon asked in his native tongue.

  “We want nothing from you, Kwon Hyun-kyoon,” the man answered. “There is nothing that you can give us.”

  Recognition flashed across Kwon’s mind then, not vague like when he first saw the man’s face after he had lowered the mask, but bright and definite. The last time Kwon had seen this man was just after he had crashed his car. This was the man who had leaned into the broken windshield searching for the briefcase.

  “You! I know you!” Kwon said.

  The fake doctor raised the gun; the barrel was barely an inch from Kwon’s head. Kwon closed his eyes and held his breath, waiting, wondering if he would feel it and hoping that he wouldn’t.

  The hospital room door opened as a nurse walked in. Kwon opened his eyes and looked toward the door.

  “Who spilled this coffee out here?” she asked as she entered the room.

  She stopped in her tracks when she saw the fake doctor and the gun that he held to the patient’s head. The nurse opened her mouth to scream, but there was another pop, and the woman folded to the ground, her scream dying with her.

  “Help!” Kwon yelled. “Please help me!”

  Another pop, and Kwon’s voice fell silent. The fake doctor lifted the surgical mask over his face and ran for the door, stepping over the nurse’s body to exit the room, stuffing the pistol into the pocket of his white lab coat and keeping his hand wrapped around the grip. The hall was empty. He stepped over the puddle of coffee spilled when he had shot Agent Hassani and headed for the door leading to the stairs at the end of the hall.

  “Hey, what’s going on there?” came a call from behind.

  He turned and saw a doctor--a real doctor--standing where the one hall intersected another. He pulled the pistol out of his pocket and fired twice at the doctor, who caught both rounds in the chest. The fake doctor ran for the stairs then as a woman’s scream rose up behind him. He slammed through the door and barreled down the stairs, passing no one along the way.

  He came out on the first floor holding the gun hidden on the coat pocket again, and walked briskly toward the nearest exit. He tried his best to steady his breathing and to not run. He wanted people to see nothing but a doctor heading off somewhere, not an assassin making his escape.

  “Stop right there!”

  The fake doctor turned his head and saw a brawly security guard headed right for him. Two pops stopped the guard, but they were his last two rounds; his pistol was now empty. More screams. The fake doctor ran for the exit. A would-be hero stepped in his path and he pistol whipped the man. The Good Samaritan backed away, cupping his gushing nose. The fake doctor made it to and through the exit and continued running. He stepped off the sidewalk, not knowing where he was going, only knowing that he had to get away from the hospital before the police arrived.

  He didn’t see the car that hit him coming. The impact killed him before his body landed back on the ground.