Critical Space

by Greg Rucka

  "Then you flee, or, if you prefer, you turn yourself in, and spin a tale of assassins and treachery that no one will ever believe."

  Bridgett was using the edge of the bed for support, her eyes moving from him to me to the woman on the bed. If I felt ill, she looked it.

  "You're evil," she spat. "You are purely evil."

  "I'm a professional doing a job," Oxford replied easily. "Unlike the bitch on the bed, I don't betray my employers or my profession. I do what I'm paid to do."

  I cleared my throat. "And she didn't, and that's why you hate her?"

  "Normally I don't give a good goddamn about who I kill or why." He looked at me. "Anyone can be a killer, Kodiak. Few can be an assassin. She let her name be known, she let her own life be more important than the job. That's despicable and unforgivable, because the job, by definition, is more important than life. I'll be happy to have capped her ass."

  He stopped suddenly, as if realizing that he'd let his emotions show, then checked his watch quickly.

  "You'll forgive me, I don't get to talk about my work often," he said.

  "Sure, I understand. Now what?"

  "Now you take off your shirt, toss it in the corner there."

  I pulled the T-shirt over my head, threw it away. My heart was starting to race, and I could feel the heat of blood, the first humiliating rising of my penis. It wasn't an erection out of arousal, and it was horrifying, and I tried not to think about it. My skin felt hot all over my body.

  "Pants, now."

  "I have to remove my shoes."

  "Yes, yes you do. You may sit on the bed and remove your shoes."

  I sat down, the pressure of my body causing Alena to shift on the mattress, her bare leg resting against my back. I remembered practicing on the post with my sneakers, rejected them as a weapon. If I was closer, maybe, but at this distance they'd do nothing but annoy him. I started to unlace them, but he stopped me.

  "Just pull them off. You were in a hurry, remember?"

  "Sorry, I forgot." I pulled them off and tossed them.

  He watched as I did so, then checked my crotch and smiled. "Okay, that's good. Now the pants."

  "I need to stand up for that." I kept my eyes on him, trying not to see Bridgett trembling. The humiliation was stronger than the fear.

  "Start seated. When they're below your knees you can stand."

  I untied the pants, pulled them down to my thighs, then stood, seeing the legs bunch around my calves.

  Ranged weapon, I thought.

  I bent down and took the cuffs of each leg, stepping out of them, then straightening up again, holding them upside down.

  "Where do you want them?" I asked.

  "Near the door. Men tend to lose their pants as soon as they can."

  "True enough," I agreed, and then I sprang, sweeping the pants up as hard and fast as I could, and he was totally unprepared for the assault. The crotch of the pants caught the barrel of the Neostead, forcing it up in his grip, and he fired high, instinctively, and the buckshot tore hell out of the ceiling, shattered the panes in the French door, and Bridgett was down on the floor but coming up again.

  I kept going forward, twisting the pant legs around the shotgun as he moved to jack the next round into place, pulling left with a spin, and he fired again, this time at where I had been seated on the bed. I yanked, and the pump locked back, preventing him from bringing another round up, and all the while I was shouting that there was a gun in the bathroom, screaming for Bridgett to get the Korth from the drawer and to shoot this son of a bitch and I kept turning, driving from my hips and thighs with the pants now bound tight around the barrel, tearing the weapon free of his grip. I finished spinning, facing him again, the gun in both hands by the barrel; Oxford was trying to step back and pull Bridgett's SIG from behind his back, and I swung the butt of the shotgun into his jaw, heard the bone crack. He staggered and dropped, and I flipped the gun in my hand, and that was the mistake, because it gave him time. He came up as I turned the gun and worked the action, diving forward past the edge of the bed, past the open bathroom door, making for the broken window. I got my finger on the trigger and fired at his head, but the full blast missed him, only a portion of the buckshot raking his face. He screamed but kept going, and before I could fire again he was on the veranda, over the railing, dropping out of sight.

  Bridgett came out of the bathroom with the Korth in her hands, and we raced each other to the ledge, reached it in time to see Oxford scrambling to his feet, running for the cover of the woods. The shotgun was useless at this range and in that cover, but Bridgett had faith in the Korth, and she fired three shots at him, but I couldn't tell if any of them had hit.

  "Motherfucker I'm gonna kill that motherfucker," she ranted, turning and making for the door.

  I spun to follow and stopped like I'd run into a wall.

  Blood soaked the bed beneath Alena's lower body in a long inverted teardrop that began beneath her left leg and ended in an expanding point at the end of the sheet, drops seeping from the sodden fabric to form a puddle on the tile floor. I let go of the shotgun and went to her side even as Bridgett was going out the door. My heart was pounding from the exertion and the Viagra and the relief and the new fear, and I called for Bridgett to wait but she didn't, just kept going, her boots echoing as she slammed down the stairs three and four at a time.

  I'd laid her head on a pillow, and now I pulled it from beneath her, folding it over and jamming it beneath her knee, trying to elevate it. Oxford had caught her with the second blast, indirectly, along the calf and shin. Her lower leg looked like raw and poorly ground meat, chewed and torn from the buckshot. Alena hadn't moved at all, her expression hadn't changed, and I hoped that meant the etorphine that Oxford had given her stole only her pain and consciousness, nothing more. I swore, tried to apply pressure to the leg, and got blood all over my hands and myself. I readjusted my grip, tried the pressure higher, and the blood flow slowed a bit but didn't stop.

  "He's gone now," I told her. "You can wake up."

  There was no sign that she'd heard me. I kept the pressure on, hoping the blood would slow, but it didn't. The contact lenses in my eyes were itching, making my vision blur, and I blinked tears out of them. I felt light-headed as I gave up on the direct pressure, went tumbling over the bed to the closet. I yanked the doors open, going through the clothes, pulling them from their hangers, and, not finding what I wanted, went to the bureau, began dumping out the drawers.

  There were a couple of belts in the third drawer, and I grabbed the thickest and moved back to Alena, wrapping it around her leg, above the knee. I looped the belt and ran it through the buckle, pulling it tight, and there was no easy way to secure it, so I ended up making a knot. The bleeding slowed further, an ooze from the brutalized muscle rather than a flow.

  I couldn't take her to the hospital in Bequia. It would be too risky, it would involve the police. But she needed medical attention, and fast, and there was only one solution I could think of. I wrapped her in the sheet and lifted her off the bed. She was breathing, shallow breaths that hadn't turned rapid yet. It wouldn't be long before she went into shock.

  Bridgett came back up the stairs as I was lifting her, much slower than she had descended them. "He got away." She was out of breath. "She dead?"

  "I can't get the bleeding to stop. I put a tourniquet on her leg but it's not enough."

  "She needs a hospital."

  "If I take her to a hospital the police will get involved."

  "And that's bad? Chris is dead downstairs..."

  "That's not her fault!"

  Bridgett stared at me. She was still in the doorway, blocking the path, the Korth in her hand. I started forward, but she didn't budge.

  "Where are you going to take her?"

  "Are you going to help me?"

  "Where are you taking her?"

  "Dammit, Bridgett, either help me or get out of the way!"

  She looked at the naked woman in my arms, at the blood
staining the sheet. She looked at me in my underwear, the look on my face, the ruins of the room.

  "Chris had the keys to the Jeep," she said.

  Chapter 8

  I'd pulled on the pants I had in my go-bag while Bridgett was driving us into Port Elizabeth, and when we hit the pier I jumped out of the vehicle and sprinted barefoot along the water until I reached The Lutra, in the process driving a splinter into the sole of my left foot. The gangplank was down and the woman was on the foredeck, in shorts and a tank top, coiling a rope. When she heard me coming she called out something in French, and her partner or lover or husband or whoever he was appeared at the stairs from below. He used the frame to block the right side of his body, and I knew he had a gun in his hand.

  "Giselle's been hurt," I said, and when neither of them moved, I repeated it in my atrocious French. "Giselle ete blesse."

  The man answered me in English, "Bring her aboard."

  "I need help."

  He spoke to the woman, coming the rest of the way up the steps and onto the deck. He was wearing shorts and sandals, with an unbuttoned tropical-style shirt. He tucked a Smith & Wesson revolver into his waistband, then followed me back down the gangplank to the Jeep. Bridgett kept an eye out while we lifted Alena out of the vehicle, still wrapped in the sheet, and we carried her quickly on board. It was mid-afternoon, and we got a couple of stares, and I hoped that we'd be at sea before someone had the presence of mind to call the police.

  Bridgett followed us, carrying the two go-bags, and the man led us from the deck down into the ship, leading us to a cabin where the woman had already pulled down one of the folding bunks. She had a basin of water ready, and an open first-aid kit. As soon as we had laid Alena on the bed, he spoke to the woman in rapid French, then went back out. Bridgett dropped the bags, and I gave her a quick nod, and she followed him up.

  "I'm Carrie," the woman told me as she pulled the sheet from around Alena's body, exposing the mutilated leg. She sounded American, maybe West Coast.

  "Paul," I said.

  She nodded, tearing open a couple packets of gauze. If she cared that the name I'd given her was, in fact, a name she had helped to give me, she showed no sign of it. "When was the last time you released the tourniquet, Paul?"

  "Fifteen minutes ago, maybe more."

  "Unfasten it."

  When I crouched by the bed, my head started spinning again, and I had to catch myself on the side of the bunk. I was still erect, and it hurt, and I tried to not care who knew or saw as I unfastened the tourniquet, allowing some blood to flow back into Alena's leg. The wound began bleeding again. It meant that the leg wasn't a total loss, but it also meant that unless something was done and soon, Alena would bleed out. She was still unconscious but beginning the journey to the surface, and when Carrie prodded the injury, pressing gauze against the torn skin, Alena rolled her head and made an almost inaudible moan.

  Beneath my knees, I felt the boat begin to vibrate, the slight lurch as we pulled away from the pier.

  "How bad is it?"

  "I'm not qualified to say," Carrie told me. "She's lost a lot of blood, obviously, and she's going to need a doctor. Go up to the bridge, tell Jerry that he should call Bennet."

  "Who's Bennet?"

  "Someone who doesn't ask questions. He's in St. Vincent, we can be there in an hour. I'll stay with Giselle and watch the tourniquet."

  I scooped up my go-bag and left the cabin, climbing the steep steps back to the deck, then climbing a short ladder to the bridge. Jerry was at the wheel, opening the throttle. Bridgett was at the rail by the ladder, watching him closely. When I got up to them, she tapped my shoulder and motioned back at the pier, which was rapidly disappearing in the distance. There didn't seem to be anyone milling about the Jeep, anyone intent on pursuing us.

  "Carrie says to call Bennet," I told Jerry.

  "Then we shall call Bennet." He took a hand from the wheel, reached over to the console beside him where a variety of electronics were resting. There was a small sonar array, and something that I presumed would feed him the latest weather, and a GPS reader. There was also a satellite phone, already on, and he picked up the handset and, with his index finger, began punching in a sequence of numbers. After a couple of seconds whoever he'd dialed answered.

  "It's Gerard for Bennet. Quickly, please." He turned the wheel slightly, then let go of it long enough to open the throttle further. "Bennet, yes, I'll be there in an hour... gunshot wound, leg... no, no, clear out the office, it'll be me and the injured and two others... looks like shotgun... let me ask, un moment."

  Jerry moved the handset down, poked the mute button on the satellite phone. "How much?" he asked me.

  "Fifty U.S.," I said.

  Bridgett opened her mouth to speak, probably objecting to my total lack of business sense, but Jerry nodded as if I'd named an appropriate price, took the mute off the phone again, and said, "Twenty thousand, U.S... bien, and no paper, Bennet, none."

  He hung up the phone, went back to handling the wheel. "You will pay us before we arrive," Jerry said. "Give the money to Carrie."

  "No problem." I headed back for the ladder, dropped back down to the deck. When I landed, my head spun again, and I wobbled, but this time didn't need to grab anything to keep myself from falling. I hoped that meant the Viagra was starting to wear off.

  Bridgett followed. "Is there a plan or are you just flying blind?"

  "We're going to get her stabilized, and then we're going to get her back to New York." We were moving along the water at a fast clip, and the wind was forcing me to raise my voice. "I have to get her secure, someplace where she can be defended. Then I'll figure out what to do next."

  Bridgett produced her Ray-Bans from inside her jacket. She wasn't wearing her traditional leather, but the windbreaker was still black. Even though she'd hidden her eyes, her mouth had turned sour. "You think that sprung motherfucker's going to try again?"

  "He ran because he lost control of the situation. You heard what he said, he's not going to stop."

  "So you're not going to, either?"

  "She hired me for a job. I'm going to do it."

  "What the hell is going on between the two of you?" Bridgett asked.

  I stopped counting out bills and looked up at her. The sun was behind her, and I had to squint. "You want to ask something, Bridie?"

  "Were you honest with Oxford or was that a lie?"

  "I don't think that's the question," I said, zipping the bag closed and standing up again. "You're not just asking if I've slept with her."

  She ran a hand through her hair, looked away from me to the Caribbean. "You not banging her isn't really the assurance you might think it is after you've lived with her for four fucking months."

  "You'd be happier if I had?"

  "You're wound around her and she's yanking your chain. You're a goddamn pushover, you know that? You arm yourself so tough, you go diesel, you go fucking hand-to-hand with killers, and yet when you meet a pair of tits who bats her eyelashes and says 'help me help me,' you go all to putty."

  "I hope you're including yourself in that," I said.

  "Oh, I am. But I've never asked you to kill for me, babe. I never asked you to break the law."

  "But it's fine when you've done it yourself."

  "I'm not a killer. She is."

  "Was."

  Her laugh was sharp and mean. "Your wishing her a conscience doesn't change what she is. She's a fucking murderer, and you need to remember that."

  "You should maybe wait until you have the facts before you go passing judgment."

  "I have all the facts I need."

  "Then we've got nothing more to discuss."

  Bridgett finally looked from the ocean back to me. Her mouth had gone tight. Then she turned and walked away, heading for the bow and a view where she didn't have to look at anything she didn't want to see.

  I took my bag and went down below, where I gave Carrie fifty thousand American dollars and then sat beside th
e bunk. She'd put a pair of shorts on Alena, and a shirt, and it made her look less vulnerable. Every ten minutes I released the tourniquet to let blood flow back into Alena's lower leg, and then I tightened it again. Carrie kept changing the bandages.

  Alena continued to stay down. I got the splinter out of my foot.

  * * *

  Bennet was a middle-aged black man with a Jamaican accent who ran a clinic in Kingstown, St. Vincent. Jerry avoided the main harbor in Kingstown and instead landed us at Barrouallie, off Wallilabou Bay, and Carrie dealt with the one man at customs while we snuck Alena off the boat and into the back of a truck. Twelve minutes later we were in a surgery with dingy white paint on the walls and ceiling and cracked robin's-egg tile on the floor. Jerry handed Bennet his money as soon as we were alone, and while Bridgett waited outside, he and I watched as the doctor started to work.

  "She's doped." He'd already started giving her blood, and had just hooked up an I.V. "What'd she take?"

  "Etorphine," I said.

  He glanced up from where Alena lay on the bed, shaking his head. "Not recreational."

  "No."

  "Maybe for the best. Narcotic, she's not feeling a thing right now. I can bring her back up with a hit of diprenorphine when I'm done working on her leg."

  "Just stop the bleeding," I said.

  He snapped on a clean pair of latex gloves, prodding the wound gingerly. "Deep wound, bone shards. I go digging in there, burning things closed and picking this shot out, could be a permanent disability."

  "Is there another option?"

  He scratched the bridge of his nose with a latex-covered thumb. "You take her to the hospital, they have surgeons could maybe do it. Tibia and fibula, problem is you can't break one without the other, and they're both ground up in here."

  "No hospital," Jerry said.

  "But I'm saying to you that I do this, she may not have everything in this leg that she once did, you understand?"

  Jerry looked at me. I nodded.

  "Okay, that's fine," Bennet said. "It's going to take me some time."

  "Take all the time you want," I said. "Just make sure you do it right."

  "Okay, that's fine," Bennet said again, and he began to work.