Extreme Danger

by Shannon McKenna

  Becca was almost grateful for the duct tape, since it canceled out any necessity for a reply.

  “Would you like some wine? It’s quite good. Kristoff, remove my guest’s gag. I grow weary of talking to myself.”

  Kristoff picked at the tape and ripped it off. The pain jerked a squeak out of her throat. She coughed as she dragged in air.

  Zhoglo leaned forward, and placed a glass of wine into her shaking hands. “Steady, my dear. Can you lift it to your mouth?”

  Her hands were blocked by the length of the chain, fixed in place against her chest by the heavy tape wound around her body.

  Zhoglo clucked in dismay. “Let me help.” He lifted the glass to her lips. Wine sloshed over her chin, her chest. She choked, coughing.

  Zhoglo waited until the spasms died down. “Would you care to know the fate of your brother and sister?”

  Becca stared at him, lungs hitching, eyes streaming. He spoke in the tone she would use to offer someone a napkin.

  “My plans have readjusted,” he confided. “My natural instinct for thrift has prevailed. That disaster on the island cost me, and these funds have to be replenished. But now that I have you to play with, I can use your brother and sister to cover costs.”

  “Cover…what costs? What do you mean?”

  Zhoglo settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and held up a cigarette. Kristoff hustled forward to light it. He crossed his legs and began to sip the glass of wine he had poured for Becca himself. “Mathes is a transplant surgeon. The very one who gave me this heart some years ago. Would you like to see the scar?” He groped at his shirt.

  Becca shook her head. “No,” she said faintly. “Please, it’s fine.”

  He shrugged and rebuttoned his shirt. “That experience gave me the initial idea. Punishment is necessary in this wretched world, but waste is not. This surgeon has joined forces with me on…well, in this eco-mad world, one might even characterize it as a recycling operation.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Your brother and sister, for instance,” he went on. “If they prove to be healthy, their combined donated organs, at the prices set by the doctor, will be worth upwards of fifty million dollars. Minus expenses, of course, which are considerable, but still. Consider the possibilities.”

  “Organs?” Her heart began to race. She felt sicker. “Oh, my God.”

  “In fact, the very first harvest has been scheduled for tonight,” he said cheerfully. “I am looking forward to it.”

  “The little kids,” she whispered. “You’re killing those little kids.”

  “Oh?” His eyebrows shot up. “So you did make progress on your investigation.” He slapped his knee. “Clever girl. You were busy, ey?”

  Busy wasn’t the word for it. Busy Becca. “I tried,” she whispered.

  “I put Josh and Carrie in with the rest of our repository of spare parts for now, pending tests to check their organ viability. They both certainly look healthy, but one never knows. I did watch your brother fornicate with a prostitute for thirty-six straight hours. I confess, I got exhausted just from watching. So naturally, we must test for HIV and so forth.”

  “Oh, no,” she forced out. “Not Joshie. You can’t do that.”

  “I can, and have. Actually, it’s the oldest girl who’s scheduled for harvest today,” he went on. “Twelve? Thirteen? I don’t remember. Hardly a child at all. Her father offended me some months ago, you see. I put her aside to settle his debt when this plan ripened. A debt that will be paid in full tonight.”

  She shook her head helplessly. “No,” she whispered. “No.”

  “Three surgical teams stand ready to utilize everything she has to give,” Zhoglo went on. “Heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, eyes, nothing wasted.”

  Tears flashed down Becca’s face. “Sveti?”

  Zhoglo’s eyes widened. “Oh, so you know about her? Was that why he was infiltrating?” He began to laugh. “How excellent that I am having the event taped. He can watch her being butchered.”

  He leaned forward, patted her knee. “I will tell you a guilty secret.” His hand lingered there, horribly moist. “My original fantasy was to punish the fools who opposed me by immobilizing them with drugs, and conducting their harvest while they were fully conscious. Feeling every slash, every tug. It is a traditional technique that I often employ. But the doctor explained to me that organs obtained in this way would not be viable for transplant. They would be polluted with the hormones provoked by pain and terror. I was forced to abandon my fantasy in favor of practical reality.”

  His hand began to move up, over her thigh. “Therefore, you will be happy to know that Joshua and Carolyn’s deaths will be pain free. Conducted under general anesthesia.” He looked expectant, as if he were actually waiting for her to express her gratitude for his mercy.

  He grunted with irritation when she failed to do so, and continued. “But not with you, Rebecca. I intend to enjoy every minute of yours, from your first scream to your last dying rasp. While Solokov watches, helpless. You, my dear, are pure, sinful indulgence. My little treat.”

  She tried to jerk her leg away, but his hand tightened. “And speaking of watching.” He glanced at his watch. “Mikhail? Would you set up the large monitor out here for myself and my guest? I have arranged for direct video feed of the operating theater.” He slapped her thigh. “We will watch the harvest together, my dear. In real time.”

  “No,” she kept whispering. It was useless, but she couldn’t stop.

  “Oh, yes. Pavel, bring some snacks for myself and my guest. What would you like, my dear? Cheese? Crackers? Sliced meats? Perhaps some fresh fruit? There are apples and some grapes, I believe.”

  Her eyes were streaming. “Please. Don’t do this. Don’t.”

  He patted her knee again, and his fingers slid up between her thighs. Big mistake to weep and plead. It excited him.

  A picture flickered onto the large screen. An overhead view, of a slender, dark-haired, incredibly pale girl who lay still on the table. Her eyelashes were so dark, brushstrokes against her white, sunken cheeks.

  Falling deeper—and deeper still. Becca closed her eyes, and wished she could will her heart to stop beating.

  But it would not obey her. It just kept thumping, painfully, stubbornly, stupidly on.

  Chapter

  32

  The corridors were endless and they echoed. Doors opened onto empty rooms that weren’t even finished—no floors, walls, no wiring, just the smell of paint and plasterboard and cement dust.

  They got lucky at the fourth stairwell. Nick strained with all his senses as he leaned down to listen, and heard the vibration of voices, like someone had opened the door to a room where people were talking and then promptly closed it again.

  They crept noiselessly one flight down, peered out. No guards, no guns. No apparent obstacles. Nick darted down the corridor, tried all the doors. Empty. No sound, no movement.

  The next floor down, he heard that muffled hum of voices again. He waved Seth and Aaro behind him, and edged along the wall. Ahead was one of those big automatic doors, with a huge metal wall button. Right before it was the room from which the voices were coming.

  He burst in. Seth and Aaro came behind him. Gasps, shrieks, shouts, terrified babbling in several languages. People scrambled for cover as three cloaked apparitions exploded into the room, bristling with guns. They scurried under tables, crouched behind couches.

  It was a doctor’s waiting room. Windowless, but luxurious and comfortable. Full of couches, walls painted in mellow tones of peach and beige, forgettable art, muted table lamps. There were even individual TVs, mounted on the end of each couch, with earphones provided. A large bookcase. A serve-yourself snack bar. A coffee maker.

  One couple remained seated, squarely in the middle of one of the couches. Hands entwined. A tall, balding man with an anxious face, and a younger, ash blond woman, thin and pale. Expensively dressed.

  “Henry?”
whispered the woman. “What’s going on?”

  The man stood up, frowning. “Who are you people? What are you doing here? This is a private clinic!”

  “Where is Dr. Richard Mathes?” Nick demanded.

  The woman’s eyes got huge with alarm. “Oh, God. Henry, no. I will not allow it.” Her voice rose. “This is not happening! We’re so close!”

  “Where is Mathes?” Nick repeated, louder.

  The woman leaped up and ran at him, shoving at his chest with her hands. “Get out of here!” she shrieked. “We’ve paid a fortune for that heart! You are not going to stop us! Get the hell out! Out!”

  Nick pushed her back towards her husband. He had no time to deal with a hysterical woman.

  Out in the corridor, he slapped the door button and the huge doors folded inward. The skinny blonde ran after them, shrieking. “No! You can’t! You can’t! You’ll bring your germs into the operating—no! Stop! You’ll kill her! You sons of bitches! She’s fragile!”

  Nick sprinted on. The woman’s voice degenerated into a despairing wail. Another automatic door, punch, and on they ran. There were voices behind the door in this corridor.

  He burst through. Into an operating theater. His heart thudded. Green, white, silver, glowing lights blazing down on a table, people in surgical scrubs bending over…oh, Christ, had they already—?

  “Get away from her!” he bellowed. “Get the fuck back!”

  The doctors scrambled away from the table with their hands in the air, eyes wide and fixed on the gun in his hand. He lunged over to the table, his heart thudding—

  Not Sveti. It hit him in the chest like a pickaxe. Big, shadowy blue, white-lashed eyes looked up at him. So pale. Grayish skin, violet shadows around her eyes, every bone in her skull showing. An anesthesia mask over her mouth and nose. IVs and tubes and sensors everywhere. Not quite under. And not Sveti. This was the girl who was supposed to get Sveti’s heart.

  She was dying before his eyes.

  The sight of her knocked all the air out of his lungs. Her eyes locked with his, full of terrible knowledge. The look of one who had crossed an invisible line and was moving swiftly onward.

  Like the look on his mother’s face when she had embraced death.

  For her, he was the grim reaper, the killer of all hope, but she just gazed at him, trying to breathe. She hadn’t really expected a reprieve.

  She was ready to go. He could see it.

  They understood each other perfectly, but words blurted out of him anyway. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “It’s not going to happen, kid. Game over.”

  A tiny nod, a weak flutter of her fingers. An almost smile.

  “You’re ruining everything! She was so close! So goddamn close!” the blond woman screeched, chasing him in. Alex Aaro followed close on her heels and grabbed her, pinning her against his massive chest.

  The girl’s mother. Nick stared at her and repeated the words mechanically. “I’m sorry. It’s not going to happen.”

  Aaro locked the flailing, sobbing woman behind his arm, and yelled over her. “Go on! I’ll secure this room.” The doctors were starting to slink towards the door. Aaro leveled his H&K at them. “Everybody stop right where you are,” he barked. “Sit down against the wall with your hands on your heads. Now.”

  “Sorry,” Nick whispered again to the girl on the table, and then he grabbed the elbow of the woman who was nearest the door and hauled her along with him into the corridor. She screamed and struggled, but he shoved her on ahead of himself. “Where’s Mathes?” he asked.

  “I’m just the perfusionist. I just run the bypass machine! I never hurt anybody! I swear it!” The woman had an Eastern European accent.

  “Shut up and take me to Mathes,” he snarled.

  She started babbling, in…Estonian? Yeah, it was Estonian. Hard to tell, she was talking so fast, voice garbled with tears. She was nattering about her boy, what Zhoglo had threatened to do to him if she didn’t comply. He had no time for this shit, no matter how pathetic.

  Estonian wasn’t his best language, but he could threaten in it.

  He slammed her up to the wall, pointed the gun at her leg. “Take me to Mathes,” he said, in her own language. “Or I start with the knee.”

  She wailed and sobbed, but when he took his hand away, she set out at an unsteady, shambling run, with Seth and him right behind.

  They didn’t have far to go. There was another operating theater, full of doctors. He veered towards it. The woman shook her head wildly, grabbed his arm and dragged him onward. “No, no. This is another recipient. All recipients. Mathes is not there, he is…he is here.”

  More double doors. Slap. Another operating theater. The woman stumbled to her knees and pointed to the glass doors. “There,” she sobbed. “He is there. Please, don’t hurt me.”

  Nick left her and crashed through the door. Another table, another cluster of green masked ghosts, bending down over a table flooded with light. The light gleamed off a scalpel, and oh sweet bleeding Christ, one of them held a surgical saw—

  “Get the fuck away from that table!” he yelled.

  A clatter of equipment, shouts and shrieks, as the doctors leaped back from the table. Nick advanced, holding the gun on them.

  Sveti. Unconscious, her thin white chest bared to the knife under the bright lights. Every rib showing. The guy standing over her with the scalpel had not moved. He stared at Nick, his eyes wide in disbelief.

  “I said to get back, asshole!” he snarled.

  The room was silent, but for the blip and whirr of machines, and the steady beep of Sveti’s heart on the monitor. Still beating. Still inside her. Seth came up behind him, cool and grim.

  “Which of you pieces of shit is Richard Mathes?” he asked.

  The others shrank away from the table, leaving the one who held the scalpel standing all alone. The one who had not scurried at his first two warnings. The one who had held his ground.

  The arrogant prick yanked his mask away, cursing. His handsome face was full of righteous indignation. “Who the hell are you? And how dare you burst in on us in this way? We are performing an extremely delicate life-saving surgery, and you have just—”

  “Shut up, you lying butcher,” Nick said. “I know exactly what you’re doing. Step back. Right now. Or I will blow your head off.”

  Light flashed on the scalpel as Mathes’s hands went slowly up, his mouth twisting in impotent rage. The urge to jump on the guy and kill him with his bare hands almost overwhelmed Nick.

  He blinked back angry tears. Sveti’s face was so white, so hollow. There was a fresh bruise under one eye, an old greenish-yellow one under the other. What had they done to her?

  “Which of you dirtbags is the anesthesiologist?” he demanded.

  The shrinking, not-me demeanor of the others singled out by elimination a pudgy woman with close-set eyes. He pointed. “You?”

  She shrugged. Her eyes were sullen and dead above her mask.

  “How long will she be out?” he demanded.

  “Ten minutes. Unless I give her more.” Her voice was flat.

  There was a flurry of movement behind him, a terrified gabble. A shriek. Nick jerked around. Mathes was holding a pistol on him.

  Bam. Mathes shrieked at the gunshot. His pistol flew in a lazy arc over the operating table. It crashed, slid into the corner.

  Mathes fell to his knees, cradling his right hand. If you could still call it a hand. It was now a mangled mass of blood, splintered bone and tendons.

  None of the crowd of doctors made any move to help him.

  Seth gave Nick an apologetic shrug. “I probably should have just wasted him, but I wanted to zap the hand that did the dirty work. And besides, I liked the idea of the fun he’ll have in prison, once the inmates find out that he gets off on gutting little kids.”

  “Fair enough,” Nick said. “Thanks.” He turned back to the anesthesiologist. “Where are the rest of the kids?”

  “What kids?” The sulk
y bitch was holding out on him.

  He gestured with his gun at the moaning Mathes, blood dripping down onto the floor. “Do you see that fuckhead? Do you see his hand?”

  “Yes,” she said reluctantly.

  “Do you want to be next?” he asked. She shook her head. “Good,” he said. “Then let’s try this question again. The kids?”

  She blinked, staring at the gun. “Downstairs somewhere. Never been down there. None of us have. They brought her up in the elevator.”

  “They? Who’s they?”

  “The ones who take care of the kids,” she snapped.

  Take care, his ass. He thought of how thin Sveti was, of the bruises on her face. “How many of them are there?”

  “Two that I’ve seen,” she said. “A man and a woman.”

  Nick glanced at Seth. “I’m going on down.”

  Seth looked troubled. “Alone?”

  “You stay with Sveti,” Nick said. No way was he leaving her alone with a roomful of people who’d been about to cut out her heart.

  “Problem solved,” Tam said coolly from the doorway.

  All eyes cut to her. They could hardly help it. She strutted into the room on four-inch silver heels, shimmering, gleaming, violently blond, an elegant silver Walther PPK in her hand.

  “I’ll go with you,” she said. “The cops are on their way to pick up the rest of this garbage.” Her narrowed eyes swept the huddled doctors.

  “Good,” Seth said. “Go on down, then. I’ll just make sure none of these guys decides to leave before that.”

  The elevator functioned without a key. Evidently, once you got this deep in the guts of this killing factory, they were no longer worried about security. Five levels of sub-basements. He glanced at Tam, who gave him a your-call shrug.