by William Oday
How many holes did it take?
“Sorry for the analogy,” Tanaka said as he saw my face. “I’m just pleased you are alive and seem to be functioning well.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Holes? I found it on the third try. I stitched the first two up and left a drain in the third. We’ll be able to remove it in a few days. After you’re sufficiently healed, we’ll schedule a bone graft to fill the holes.”
I had three holes in my head?
And a drain sticking out of one of them?
I tried to reach up to feel them, but my hand jerked to a stop. A strap around the wrist. I tried the other hand and found it the same. I tried to arch my back off the bed, but a strap across my chest prevented it.
I glared at Tanaka. “Why?”
“You were restrained during the surgery for your own safety. I’m sure you can understand that brain surgery is a delicate business. A sudden movement could’ve ended up with a drill bit hollowing out your hippocampus. That’s an injury you wouldn’t want to survive.”
“Why now?”
“Afterwards, I told them the restraints were unnecessary. I tried to have them removed, but was overruled. They were worried about your behavior. You know, carrying a gun in here and the whole time looking like you were half a second away from using it.”
He wasn’t wrong about that.
“It made people nervous.”
“I’m the president and I order you to remove these restraints.”
Tanaka flipped the cover paper back into place on the clipboard. He set it on the side table and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Scout, there’s been a—”
The recovery room door flew open and two men walked in. Rather, one marched and one slunk. Neither was familiar.
“Scout,” the man in uniform with a chest full of bars and ribbons said, “you’re awake.”
He must’ve been a captain.
Captain Obvious.
Or maybe Captain Disappointed because he didn’t appear to enjoy the good news.
A thin man in a dark blue suit stood behind him, looking around the side like a child behind a parent.
“Who are you?” I asked before realizing my error. Better to keep quiet and let them guess what I did and didn’t know. Not a mistake I would’ve made if I’d been more alert.
His eyes narrowed as he replied. “General Curtis. And this,” he dragged the thin man out and shoved him forward, “is Speaker of the House Tuckerman. We’ve been informed of your condition and have a document for you.”
Tuckerman’s eyes dropped to the folded paper in his hands. He stared at it.
“Give it to him!” the general barked.
Tuckerman jumped like he’d been zapped with a cattle prod. He stepped forward and dropped the paper onto my chest.
“Hard to read in my current condition,” I said with simmering anger in my gut.
The general grabbed the paper in a wad and held it up, crumpled and unreadable. “This formally declares you medically unfit for the office of president and passes the title to the next in line of succession… which is Mr. Tuckerman.”
“Umm, President Tuckerman now,” the thin man said. “Technically.”
The general flashed a glare that shut him up. The relationship couldn’t have been any clearer. Not if there was a leash and a choke collar involved.
Curtis turned to me and a grin slashed across his face. “You are no longer the president.” He pivoted in a sharp about-face toward Tuckerman. “Mr. President, may I advise you to lock this man up as an enemy of the state.”
It wasn’t a question.
President Tuckerman looked away. “I don’t think. I mean. It’s not really necessary to—”
“I strongly advise it, sir,” Curtis said. The sir got tacked on as an afterthought.
Tuckerman nodded. “Sure. Of course. Okay. Let’s do that.”
“Corporal Martinez!” Curtis called over his shoulder.
Two soldiers in dark gray cammies carrying service rifles marched into the room and took up positions on each side of the bed. The smaller of them, a woman, snapped off a smart salute. “Yes, sir!”
“Throw him in the brig!” Curtis said. “No visitors without my personal consent.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
She reached for the bed rail, but Tanaka swatted her hand away. “He’s not going to the brig! He’s my patient and he’s done nothing wrong!”
General Curtis stepped into Tanaka’s personal space and leaned into him. “Unless you want to join him, I suggest you move aside.”
Tanaka melted away. “Fine. But I want these restraints off. He needs full mobility to maximize his recovery.”
The general’s lip curled up. My recovery obviously wasn’t a priority for him.
“I’ll also require regular check ups with him,” Tanaka said. “And if his time in your care results in harm of any kind, I will bring it to the attention of everyone who you’ve ever stepped on or stepped over in your ruinous rise to power.”
The general’s gaze hardened to steel with a cutting edge. “Be careful, doctor. You may be the best we have, but you are not untouchable.”
“Are you threatening me, general?” Tanaka swept a hand around the room. “In front of no less than five witnesses?”
“Witnesses?” The general looked at each person in the room, ending on Tanaka. “I see you and a man who barely remembers his own name.”
Tanaka swallowed hard.
“We’ll remove the restraints when he is secured. You can check on your patient twice a day.”
Tanaka opened his mouth to object but the general cut him off.
“This isn’t a negotiation. Marines, move out!”
Corporal Martinez pulled the wheeled bed away from the wall. Her counterpart guided it and me into the hallway.
I turned my head as the door closed and saw Tanaka silently mouth a message. His lips formed around the words.
I’m sorry.
10
The elevator rose two levels and dinged. A pleasant female voice announced, “Third floor. Administration.”
The doors slid open and General Curtis and President Tuckerman stepped out. The latter headed down a corridor of polished marble tiles and elegant indirect lightning that somehow came from nowhere and evenly illuminated everything.
Curtis snapped his fingers and the president froze like a chastened dog. The general turned back to the three of us still inside the elevator. “Corporal Martinez, take him straight to the brig. No visitors. Nobody. I want it taken care of. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir!” Martinez said.
“Good, because I’ll have your head otherwise.”
“Understood, sir!” she barked. The soldiers snapped crisp salutes as the doors slid shut.
As soon as the car began to rise, the atmosphere changed. Like air flooding into a vacuum. The soldiers exchanged a look.
The man spoke first. “Did you see that?”
“What?”
“What? What are you talking about, what?”
Martinez shrugged. “What?”
“You really think President Tuckerman is going to be in charge?”
Martinez leaned over me and grabbed him by the collar. She yanked him over the side of the rail until their noses nearly touched. “General Curtis is the only thing that stands between us and total annihilation. So shut your mouth and do your job,” she said between clenched teeth. Her eyes darted up to the corner of the elevator where a dark half-sphere lens concealed a security camera.
He nodded. “Copy that!”
She let him go and he straightened, his gaze sliding over the security camera before looking away.
The elevator dinged and the voice announced, “First floor. Security.” The doors slid open and they wheeled me out into a noticeably different space than the Administration level.
It looked like the inside of an old Navy ship. All metal plates with riveted seams. Painted the same dr
ab beige color as the walls in the exam rooms. There must’ve been a big surplus of it at some point.
Martinez pushed me down a long hall with numerous closed doors on either side. The other soldier walked in front, making sure the path was clear.
The hall opened into a room with a long counter with several soldiers seated behind it. Different than my escorts. Pencil-pusher types.
Martinez ignored them and continued toward a hallway on the right.
A man with wobbling jowls jumped out of his seat and hurried around the counter to block their path. “Excuse me!” he said as he grabbed a rail and forced them to stop. “You know the rules! All prisoners must be signed in upon arrival and signed out upon departure.”
Martinez sighed. “Yeah.”
He hurried back to the counter, grabbed a Data Access Pad‚ or DAP, and started tapping on the screen. “I assume this is the prisoner we were expecting,” he said as he looked down at me. “Hard to tell with all the bandages and bruising.”
“Affirmative,” Martinez replied with more sarcasm, derision and disgust than seemed theoretically possible to fit into a single word.
The clerk smiled, either oblivious or used to the abuse, and held out the DAP to Martinez. “A thumb print will suffice.”
Martinez smashed her thumb onto the screen and it beeped.
“You’re all set,” the clerk said with an upbeat voice like he’d just done Martinez a favor. “You can thank me later.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Martinez replied as she shoved the bed into motion. A wheel rolled over the clerk’s toe as we passed.
He yelped and jumped away. “Owww! That was unnecessary!”
She chuckled as we continued on. “Negative. That was totally necessary.”
A ways down the hall, we approached a closed door on the right and Martinez slowed the bed to a stop.
Custodial was spray-painted in black letters on it.
“What are you doing?” the male soldier asked.
“Just wanted to grab him a few extra blankets. The circulation ducts don’t push much heat all the way back to the cell block. It always feels twenty degrees colder in there.”
“Ain’t that the truth. I hate pulling those shifts.”
“Can you tap it open?” Martinez asked.
“Sure,” he said as he pulled the badge off his chest and touched it to a sensor by the door. It beeped and slid open. “How many you thinking?”
“A couple extra should do it.”
He stepped inside and out of view.
Martinez hurried around the bed and went inside.
A sharp smack and then a dull thud and she reappeared. She grabbed the foot of the bed and rotated it around before dragging me inside.
When the bed cleared the doorway, she pressed a button and the door slid shut.
I looked through the side railing and saw the soldier crumpled up on the floor.
Martinez pulled a vicious-looking knife from the sheath at her hip. Ten inches of black blade with sharp teeth down the spine opposite a razor edge. She twisted it in the air between us. “Do you know who I am?”
I shook my head. “No.”
She leaned over the rail and slid the blade under the strap across my chest. The point dug into the thin hospital gown.
One hard thrust would do it.
And there was nothing I could do to stop her.
She twisted the blade and sliced through the strap. “My big brother, Sergeant Fernando Martinez, went with you on your last mission. He was so excited to be serving under your command. He didn’t think there was a higher honor. I remember the last day I saw him. I remember it like it was yesterday. I lost my brother just like you lost your daughter.” She got the last restraint free, secured the knife, and helped me sit up.
The throbbing pain in my head was distracting but bearable. “I’m sorry but I don’t remember him.”
She locked eyes with mine. “General Curtis will never let you leave the brig. I doubt he intended to let you live through the night.”
“You think he was going to murder me?”
“Personally? No. That’s not his style. But have one of his underlings pay you a visit with a syringe filled with something that stops the heart and can’t be traced? Yeah, that’s his style.”
“Why would he do that?”
She gave me an odd look. “Because you two don’t see eye to eye and he doesn’t like the concept of competition. That, and you stole his spot as Vice-President.”
“I did?”
“That’s the rumor. I don’t know for sure. I’m just a grunt. But I know he hates you and wants you dead.”
I rubbed circulation back into my wrists and hands. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because you refused the general’s orders to leave my brother behind. You tried to save his life. I won’t let them get you. Not if I can help it.”
“If I’m in that much danger, you’re putting your own life at risk.”
“Affirmative. My choice.” She helped me stand and then looked me over. “Taller than I thought. I should’ve brought along Ericsson.”
“What?”
She knelt beside the unconscious soldier and started stripping off his uniform.
“These cammies are gonna be a tight squeeze. The seam’s probably gonna friction saw your sack in half.” She looked up over her shoulder with a grin. “You don’t need testicles to survive, right?”
I stood there like a statue. As much out of concern for my testicles as out of confusion about what was going on.
“Help me out here!” she said. “We don’t have much time. Once the alarm is raised, the whole bunker will turn into a frenzied anthill of activity to find us. And we don’t want them to find us.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you been listening?”
I thought I had.
“Because it won’t be a search and capture mission. It’ll be a search and destroy mission. General Curtis wants you dead and a prisoner on the run offers an easy excuse to make that happen.”
CHOICES:
1. Should I choose to be taken to the brig, knowing I need to rest and heal, and then worry about the next step later?
2. Should I stick with Martinez and try to escape together, knowing we may both end up dead?
3. Should I go with Martinez for now, but dump her as soon as possible in order to protect her from the consequences of aiding in my escape?
4. Should I turn Martinez in and look to take advantage of the favor that giving up a traitor would bring?
The group chose #2 and this is what happened next…
11
A jolt of pain as my hand grazed the drain tube sewn into my scalp. I winced and made a note to be more careful.
Martinez looked up from unlacing the soldier’s boots. “Hurts, huh?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, if we don’t get you changed fast, we’ll both end up with holes in our heads. And not the kind that help.”
“I have three.”
“Three what?”
“Three holes in my head. Skull, to be precise. The drain is attached to one of them.”
She grimaced before turning back to removing the boots. “They really went caveman on you.”
I reached behind to untie the strings of my hospital gown. My ribs ached in protest. So, I grabbed the cloth covering my chest and gave it a sharp yank.
It ripped free and I tossed it aside. I picked up the unconscious soldier’s gray shirt and held it up by the shoulders. Looked small.
“Whoa!” Martinez said as she turned back around holding a pair of boots.
I stood there holding the shirt while the cool air prickled my bare skin.
“You could’ve warned me!” she said as her eyes drifted down. They widened and she spun away. “Why are you naked?”
“Because I’m changing.” I slipped into one sleeve and then the other.
“Well, you could’ve warned me.”
“Warned you? About what?”
“Never mind. Just get some clothes on already!”
I finished buttoning up the shirt. “Can I have the pants?”
She shoved them behind her without looking. “Gonna have to go commando unless you want his underwear.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Didn’t think so.”
I stepped into each leg and pulled them up. Yep, it was going to be a tight fit.
“You good?”
“Yeah,” I said as I tucked myself in to keep from getting caught on the zipper.
“Oh my God,” she said as she turned away again.
“What?”
“You said you were good and then you’re all grabbing yourself in front of me!”
I pulled up the zipper and clasped the top button. “One, I wasn’t grabbing myself. I was avoiding getting nicked by the zipper. And two, I didn’t ask you to watch me get dressed.”
“I wasn’t watching! You said you were good!”
“I thought you were asking if the pants were going to work.”
“Whatever. Can we move on already?”
“Sure.”
“Are you fully dressed yet?”
“Yes.”
She took a careful peek over the shoulder, and saw me trying on the boots. “How are they?”
My big toe hit the end and crumpled over as I shoved my foot down until the heel sunk into the boot. “They’ll work.”
“Good.” She grabbed a sheet off the bed and started cutting it into ribbons with the knife that happily hadn’t ended up buried in my chest.
I finished getting dressed and took a breath. The shirt buttons stretched tight and stopped my lungs at about half full. The boots would work, but my toes were going to cramp up in no time. Probably take a pair of pliers to bend them straight by the time I got the boots off.