by Jude Hardin
Her condition was getting better, though. Her heartbeat wasn’t as rapid as it had been a few minutes ago, and her respirations had begun to stabilize. Stoked on adrenaline, she felt stronger than she had in days.
The main problem now, she realized after another fifteen or twenty feet, was that her palms and the heel of her left foot were starting to get sore. She stopped and cracked open the Zippo and flicked the flint wheel. As she suspected, her hands and her heel had already started to blister.
“Why?” she shouted. “Why is this happening to me?”
She asked the question, but in her heart she knew why all this was happening to her. She was being punished for allowing her brother and sister to wander off and get hit by a car.
Nika looked up, and through a prism of tears she saw something totally unexpected.
It was a stop sign.
There was an intersection ahead, and maybe that meant that the exit wasn’t much further. She closed the lighter and put it back in her mouth and started scooting again, moving faster now, ignoring the pain, determined to make it to the sign and find her way out of the cave. Inch by painstaking inch, sweat dripping down her face in streams, she grunted her way forward for what must have been ten minutes straight. Exhausted nearly to the point of collapse, she stopped and struck the lighter again, and she was there! She’d gone beyond the stop sign, and she was sitting in the middle of the little four-way intersection. The ceiling was much higher here, probably eight feet or more. Plenty of room for anyone to stand up. She looked to her right, and there was an opening covered with what appeared to be fake foliage, cheap stuff that you could buy at any discount store. That was how they hid the cave, she thought. It was probably in a remote location, probably on a property protected by fences, but the plastic ivy draped across the entrance would make it invisible to airplanes and satellites, hunters and birdwatchers and whatnot.
Nika decided to try her leg again. The mouth of the cave was only a few yards away, and she thought she could tolerate the pain at least that far. She set the lighter on the floor, left it burning as she pulled herself up to a standing position and started hobbling toward the opening. Soon she would be outside, she thought, and she wouldn’t need the firelight anymore.
Unless of course it was dark outside.
She realized that she had no idea what time it was, or even what day. She knew the month and the year. She knew her name. She wasn’t totally confused.
Maybe it was nighttime. Maybe she would need the light after all. And if she couldn’t get help right away, she might even need it to build a campfire. She was fatigued and traumatized, and she wasn’t thinking clearly. Of course she should take the lighter with her. She might need it, and there was absolutely no downside to bringing it along. How absurd to even think otherwise!
But as she started to turn around to retrieve it, she noticed a long thin shadow beside her own.
14
Oliver Fennel’s encrypted cell phone trilled. It was eleven o’clock at night, and he’d just crawled into bed beside his wife.
“Can’t you just let it ring for once?” she said.
“I wish.”
He grabbed the phone from the nightstand, thinking if it was Blake Howitzer calling him at such an odd hour again—after being given explicit instructions not to—he would simply hang up. But it wasn’t Blake Howitzer. It was one of Fennel’s field operatives, a woman currently going by the name of Sterns.
After the requisite exchange of identifying code phrases, she said, “One of the employees is missing.”
Sterns and three other agents had been assigned to follow up on the non-disclosure agreements signed by everyone who had worked the nightshift at CereCirc.
“Which one?” Fennel said.
“A nurse named Nika Dunning.”
“I’m assuming you followed the protocol in trying to contact her.”
“Yes. We knocked on her door at various times Sunday evening and throughout the day on Monday, and we made multiple calls to both her phone numbers. We kept a car at her house all day today, and then we picked the locks and went inside about thirty minutes ago for the ADOS check. She’s not here.”
ADOS. Accidental death or suicide. It was rare in cases like this, but not unheard of. The CereCirc situation was serious business, and the follow-ups were crucial—along with psychological counseling and motivational reinforcement when deemed necessary. The fact that one of the cogs in this particular wheel of deception was missing troubled Fennel greatly.
“You’ve talked to all the others?” he said.
“Yes. We’re getting full cooperation from everyone else. Seems like there’s always one who—”
“We have to find her,” Fennel said.
“I know. We’re hacking the usual systems, hospitals and airports and police departments and all. So far, nothing. She has two vehicles registered in her name. One is here in the garage, and the other is missing.”
Sterns told Fennel the makes and models of Nika Dunning’s automobiles.
“Have you dusted the house for prints yet?” Fennel said.
“Not yet.”
“Do it. She might have had someone with her when she left. Two names are always easier to track than one.”
“I’m on it, sir.”
“Call me when you know something.”
Fennel disconnected.
“What was that all about?” his wife asked.
“Nothing. Just some stuff for work.”
She snuggled close and kissed him on the side of the neck.
“You seem really uptight lately,” she said. “I think you could use a vacation.”
“I think so too,” Fennel said.
But he didn’t really think so. Taking a vacation was the furthest thing from Oliver Fennel’s mind at the moment. He clicked the bedside light off, said goodnight, turned over and stared into the darkness.
15
It was a moth! A tiny white moth had somehow flown in through the fake foliage, apparently attracted to the firelight from the Zippo. It had landed on a little ledge near the flame, throwing a huge shadow toward the mouth of the cave.
“You about scared me to death,” Nika said, speaking to the moth as she lifted the cigarette lighter and carried it toward the opening.
She made her way through the layers of plastic plant leaves, hobbling outside to the cool, crisp air. It was nighttime, but the sky was clear and the moon bright. She could see well enough without the fire, so she clicked the lighter’s top shut and limped forward.
About twenty feet from the mouth of the cave, there was a cliff that overlooked a ravine. It was steep, probably impossible to navigate without rappelling equipment. Nika started wondering how anyone made it up here on a regular basis. Maybe they used helicopters, she thought, although it seemed that the noise from the engines and rotors would draw unwanted attention. There had to be another way.
Shivering, she held the blanket tightly around her body, trying to conserve warmth. She didn’t know what time it was, or how low the temperature was likely to dip through the night, but she guessed it to be in the mid-forties already. Which meant that hypothermia was a concern, along with everything else.
She turned to her right and started walking, every step a fresh jolt of excruciating pain that radiated from her heel to her hip. At least the ground was smooth and flat for the most part, free of trees and underbrush. Someone had cleared the entire area, which again made Nika consider helicopters as her captors’ primary mode of transportation to and from the cave and the underground complex.
Then she saw the path.
It was about five feet wide, and there were tire tracks leading down into the woods. Four-wheelers, she thought. And maybe dirt bikes. That’s how the people who’d kidnapped her made it up and down the mountain. If only she had something like that right now! Even a bicycle would do the trick going down.
But Nika didn’t have an ATV, or a bicycle, or even a pair of shoes. She stepped onto the tra
il and started the impossibly long descent, the dirt hard and cold beneath her bare feet, the brisk November wind stinging her face and her legs.
The canopy got thicker as she hiked further and further into the woods, choking the moonlight but also blocking most of the wind. Every few minutes she struck the Zippo and then extinguished it, using it as an intermittent torch to help guide her way.
The forest had been silent except for Nika’s own labored breathing, but as she followed the path around a bend to the right, she heard the unmistakable babble of water rushing over rocks. It sounded delicious. It reminded her of how thirsty she was, how absolutely parched. It didn’t sound very far away, so she decided to veer into the woods in an effort to find it. She knew that deviating from the path was risky, but so was dehydration. She didn’t think she could make it through the night without water.
As it turned out, the creek was less than a hundred feet from the path. The moon glistened off the flowing stream and the smooth, shiny rocks. Nika knelt down, cupped her hands, and dipped them into the water. She smelled it first, then took a sip and swished it around in her mouth. It tasted fine, so she took a few swallows, feeling its icy coldness from the tip of her tongue to the pit of her stomach. It was refreshing, but she didn’t want to drink too much too fast, fearing it might make her sick to her stomach. And of course there was a chance that it was contaminated, but she didn’t think so. It was too cold and tasted too good.
She lit the lighter and took a good look at her foot. It was swollen, but not as bad as she’d thought. She lowered it into the creek and let the freezing water rush over it for a few minutes, allowing the coldness to numb away some of the pain.
There was a huge oak tree about twenty feet from the bank. Nika walked over there, bunched some dry crunchy leaves together, sat on the ground and leaned against its fat trunk. She held her knees to her chest, pulling the blanket around herself like a poncho, covering the top of her head and the lower part of her face so that her respirations would help warm the rest of her body.
After a few minutes, she got downright comfortable, and she suddenly realized how utterly exhausted she was. Just a few minutes, she thought. Just a few minutes of blissful uninterrupted rest, and she would get up and start back down the hill.
Nika remembered hearing stories of how seductive hypothermia could be, how it could trick you into a feeling of serenity even as your core body temperature plummeted, but she closed her eyes and drifted off into a peaceful sleep anyway, fully aware as she did so that she might never wake up.
16
Mike took a cab back to Sidney’s, jumped the fence and picked the lock and went inside and slept until four a.m.. He took a shower, loaded Slick into his backpack, headed out to start another day.
His blistered hands needed a rest, so he’d decided not to stand in line for the labor pool again. Maybe tomorrow, but not today. Anyway, he had a little money in his pocket, and he had some other business to take care of.
He started walking east, hitched a ride across the bridge to Memphis, found a 24-hour diner and ordered the breakfast special. He left Slick outside to enjoy the nice pebbled landscaping and the shrubs. Mike knew that the cat wouldn’t go far.
“More coffee?” the waitress said.
“Please.”
She filled Mike’s cup, tore a ticket from her booklet and set it on the table.
“You can just pay at the register whenever you’re ready,” she said.
“How far is Mill Avenue from here?”
“Not far. It’s behind the hospital, and then one block north, I think.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Mike read the newspaper and drank three more cups of coffee. He left a tip on the table, paid at the front counter on the way out. The sun had come up, but it was overcast and windy and chilly. He needed a heavier jacket. Finding a thrift store and buying one was near the top of his list of things to do.
He unzipped his backpack, set it on the sidewalk and shouted for Slick. The cat came and nuzzled his way inside. He knew the drill. Mike zipped him in, slung the backpack over his shoulder, started walking toward the hospital. He would have taken a cab, but it was still early and he needed to kill some time. No point in spending the money if he didn’t have to.
It was almost nine when he found the address on Mill Avenue. He let Slick out of the backpack again, mounted the porch and knocked, and an elderly gentleman with wiry gray hair combed in a style that Albert Einstein would have been proud of answered the door wearing a white smock buttoned all the way up to his throat. Dr. Leonard Fergusson. He’d retired twenty years ago, but the technology behind performing a basic extraction probably hadn’t changed much since then. It probably hadn’t changed much since the ancient Egyptians.
“Joe sent me,” Mike said.
“Who?”
“He owns a tavern over in West Memphis. I have a bad tooth, and he said you might be able to let me slide on the payment for a week or two.”
“Ah, Joe. Come on in.”
Mike followed the old dentist through a living room with wall-to-wall carpeting that had gone out of style sometime during the Reagan administration. Sometime before Mike was even born. Mike supposed that he wouldn’t have picked up on a detail like that in his former life. But with the MK-2’s General Knowledge program on board, he was practically a walking encyclopedia.
The implant definitely had its advantages, but Mike still wanted it taken out. There had to be a way. There had to be a surgeon somewhere who could perform the procedure without the assistance of CT scans and MRIs. Mike just needed to locate the right physician. Soon, he thought. After he found out what happened to Nika.
Dr. Fergusson led Mike to the converted space that served as his procedure room. There was a chair and a sink and an x-ray machine and a gleaming tray of pointy steel instruments. Adjustable overhead light, suction, electric drill, all the usual stuff.
Fergusson grabbed a pair of Nitrile gloves from a box on the counter.
“Have a seat,” he said.
“Thanks.”
Mike eased himself onto the aquamarine vinyl upholstery, the armrests and headrest blackened from decades of use. Fergusson donned a surgical mask, repositioned the chair, and adjusted the overhead light.
“Let’s have a look,” he said.
“The one bothering me is on the lower right.”
Mike opened his mouth, grunted in agony when the steel pick found the exposed nerve.
“I’ll need to get an x-ray,” Fergusson said. “I think you might need a root canal.”
“Just pull it,” Mike said.
“You want me to pull the tooth?”
“Yes. It’s killing me. I just want it out of my head.”
“I can pull it if you want me to, but there’s a good chance I might be able to save it. I hate to—”
“Yank it,” Mike said.
“All right. If that’s what you want.”
Fergusson opened a closet door and wheeled out a large metal cylinder with a valve and a pressure gauge on top.
“What’s that?” Mike said.
“Nitrous oxide. Laughing gas. I’ll use it in conjunction with a numbing agent that I’ll inject directly into your gums.”
“No gas, no needles.”
Mike was almost certain that the doctor who’d removed the bullet from his arm had sedated him to the point of unconsciousness, and he didn’t want it to happen again.
“You’re joking,” Fergusson said. “If I don’t at least numb the area around the tooth, the procedure is going to be extremely painful.”
“The tooth is extremely painful right now, doctor.”
“I’m telling you, it will be intolerable. I’ve been a dentist for over fifty years, and I’ve never performed an extraction without some sort of—”
“Don’t worry. I can take it.”
Fergusson looked doubtful, but he didn’t argue the point any further. He backed the nitrous oxide canister into the closet and closed the
door.
A phone rang in the distance.
“Excuse me,” Fergusson said. “I’m expecting a call from my grandson. I’ll be right back.”
“All right.”
There was a poster about gingivitis tacked to the wall beside the chair. Mike read through it twice while the dentist was gone.
When Dr. Fergusson returned, he washed his hands and donned a fresh set of gloves and a mask with a transparent plastic eye shield attached.
In case of blood splatters, Mike supposed.
Fergusson pumped the pedal at the base of the chair, raising it for optimal leverage. He positioned his tray of instruments, and then he lowered the headrest so that Mike was staring at the ceiling.
“Open,” he said.
Mike braced himself, knowing that this was probably going to be the most intense pain of his life. He opened his mouth as widely as he could while Dr. Fergusson reached in with a shiny pair of pliers.
The steel grips locked onto the bad tooth, and Mike could feel the roots start to loosen deep in his jaw. Then, suddenly, it felt as though the whole side of his face was being dismantled with a bull dozer. Mike yawped involuntarily as the doctor pulled and wiggled and yanked and strained and finally managed to dislodge the diseased molar.
Mike got a healthy taste of his own blood before Fergusson grabbed some gauze pads from the tray and stuffed them into the gap.
It was over. It would hurt for a while, but the pain was tolerable. Now Mike could do what he needed to do. Now he could focus on finding Nika.