Tainted Blood

by Ferrel D. Moore

  “Be careful with that. You might have broken the syringe and then—”

  “Shut up.”

  He obediently quit talking, picked up his bag and opened it, rummaging around as though looking for the syringe although he already knew where it was. It was the gleam of his scalpel that had immediately captured his attention. With it he could cut the man’s throat in an instant. He looked up to see if the guard was staring at him, but the man had turned away. With a deft motion of his hand, he palmed the scalpel and slid it into his coat pocket, then picked up the syringe.

  “I need you to open the cage.”

  The man grunted and tossed him a set of keys. Sasha lay still, although the doctor had earlier only injected him with a harmless solution.

  Now the critical part, to see if the keys to Sasha’s manacles were on the key ring.

  “Will one of these open the manacles so that I can get at his arm?

  “What for?”

  “I have to do this right. Just one wrist is all I need to undo.”

  The guard looked at him for a long moment.

  “The long thin one,” he said finally, then looked toward the back windows.

  The doctor’s hands trembled as he bent to pick up the keys. The guard was still looking the other way. If he got to his feet and took a few quick steps, he could use the scalpel and slit the man’s throat while the others were looking for Drogol.

  Just a few quick steps.

  But all the guard had to do was turn a little in his chair and shoot him.

  He wondered what it would feel like to be shot. Not good he suspected, not good at all.

  “Could you hold your gun on him while I’m doing this so he doesn’t hurt me?”

  The guard looked back at him over his shoulder.

  “You want me to hold your hand while you do it? He’s not going to bite you.”

  The doctor shook his head no and tried to appear chastened.

  “Then just do it. You talk more than my kids.”

  In the darkness, Dr. Pazyryk blanched. Kids? Did the man say kids? How could someone like him have children? And if he killed him, they would be orphans. Suddenly the thought of murdering him in cold blood seemed horrific.

  He stood with the syringe in one hand and the keys in his other and moved toward the cage.

  There were three keys on the key ring. He thought about that. One key for the cage, one for the manacles, and the other for … what?

  The first key he tried opened the cage door. It swung back noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. How thoughtful, he thought. Someone actually oiled the hinges to the cage. Perhaps they had a mechanic whose sole job was to keep cages and chains and torture devices well-oiled. But to his dismay, the door swung open the wrong way. It now stood directly between him and his guard. To cut the man’s throat, he would have to close the door again. The inside of an ambulance had never seemed so small.

  As he looked over at the guard for a moment, he reconsidered. Perhaps the man’s children would be better off without a father, especially a father like him.

  The second key did not fit the manacle on Sasha’s left wrist and Dr. Pazyryk wondered again what it was for until he saw that the lock on the neck ring was different. The third key undid the wrist manacle with a soft click.

  He lifted the syringe and was about to pretend to inject it when the guard turned and shouted “Watch out.” The doctor jolted backward so quickly he almost dropped it.

  “Sorry,” said the man. “I thought he was going to bite you.”

  “Very funny,” said Dr. Pazyryk. “I almost dropped the syringe.”

  The man turned back to look out the windows.

  Bastard, thought the doctor.

  Throughout the entire incident, Sasha had not moved. He played his part so well that he looked dead.

  Better to look dead than to be dead, he thought.

  He moved forward again, lifted Sasha’s arm, and jabbed the needle into a pinch of sleeve, injecting the fluid harmlessly along the man’s bicep. Sasha would pretend to wake slowly in a few moments. He must have heard the discussion with Ivan a few minutes before. Whatever else his failings, the young man had iron nerves.

  After quietly laying the syringe on the floor of the cage, the doctor slid the scalpel out of his pocket and concealed it behind one hand as best he could. Then, he took the keys in his other hand and backed out of the cage. The cage door closed without a sound.

  As he approached the guard, he jangled them to make enough noise that the guard wouldn’t be alarmed. To his relief, the guard merely extended his hand and curled his fingers, indicated that he should drop them in his palm. Dr. Pazyryk stepped dutifully forward, then taking a short intake of air to fortify his nerves, he dropped the keys in the man’s hand, leaned forward, extended the scalpel and slid his hand around the man’s neck. With a quick slice, he cut completely through the man’s throat and pulled it around to sever his ceratoid artery.

  *****

  Mishka led the men to the building.

  The formed a net around it of thirty men wearing night vision goggles and riot gear. One man popped the garage door, while the others trained their weapons, ready to shoot. At the back of the garage, they saw a door, and, weapons still raised, they approached and opened it wide. Mishka gave the signal and they went in one at a time then reformed inside the empty building. When the all clear was given, Mishka went inside. His nerves felt thick with fear. Even in the video, the beast was terrifying. Now, he was about to enter its den.

  “No sign of them,” whispered one man into his ear. “Place looks like nobody’s been in here for years. There’s dust everywhere.”

  Mishka breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that tonight he would not be facing the monster. Then, from across the room, one of his men motioned near a closed door. Mishka walked over and saw the man point down.

  A line of disturbed dust in the green light of their goggles showed that the door had been opened recently. Mishka gave another hand signal, and men fanned out. He stepped back behind them then said quietly, “Go.”

  It was unlocked. His earlier relief dissipated.

  Down the hallway they went in silence, two abreast, weapons at the ready. The tension was as oppressive as the stale, tasteless, dead air. He began to sweat underneath the weight of his gear.

  Mishka thought about his cousin, who had brought him all this misery. If only she were here tonight with the man they were hunting. He would shoot her himself. Back at the warehouse he had slapped her for show in front of his men. Now, however, he would gladly beat her to death before he shot her.

  He put the thought on hold while they moved through the hazy green of night vision.

  Down they went, asking no questions, a small army of killers ready to shoot on sight. They walked silently on thick-soled boots. The hallway began to feel confining and Mishka smelled the stink of his own fear. He held tightly to his AK47 as though it were a talisman that could ward off the evil at the end of the dark hallway that seemed to go forever down. Finally, they came to the massive iron door.

  His men moved aside so he could inspect it. Somewhere deep inside, he knew that it was the gate to Hell itself. He would be shot if he went back. Beyond the door might be the beast. He faced death at either end. Suddenly Sasha’s cage seemed a much safer place to be.

  “Blow it,” he said.

  A man stepped forward and began putting plastic explosive in place.

  Mishka, who did not believe in God, began to pray anyway.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Dr. Pazyryk threw up on the man he’d just killed.

  The ambulance filled with the stink of his vomit, and his knees buckled. Before he could hit the floor, he caught the side of the cage. The taste in his mouth was awful.

  “Don’t pass out before you unlock me.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Sasha was nodding his head at him like an understanding friend.

  “First time’s the worst.”

  �
��I don’t want to have a second time,” he said.

  “Then unchain me. I’ll take it from here.”

  The tone in the young man’s voice caused the doctor to look over at him.

  “Hurry, we don’t have much time.”

  The doctor wiped his sleeve across his mouth, searched for and retrieved his keys and crawled into the cage again. He tried to open the locks, but his hands shook so badly that he couldn’t even insert the key. Sasha took them from him with his still free hand and undid the others while the doctor collapsed back against the bars and watched.

  “The other key, that’s for the band around your neck.”

  “Speak quietly unless you want company. Leave the locks to me. You get me his gun. His gun,” Sasha repeated. “You know, so we can shoot back. Hurry. We need a weapon.”

  “I feel sick.’

  “Better than dead.”

  Although Dr. Pazyryk was well familiar with dead bodies, he had never touched the body of a man that he himself had murdered. The urge to vomit rose in him like an eruption, but the thought of being gunned down in the ambulance by Ivan’s men caused him to suppress the desire. Things were totally out of control now. In the past being caught and killed had been only theoretical. If he was careful in his communications to Hauck his betrayal of the old woman would not be discovered. Those days were long past. There was no longer any possibility of him staying alive unless he escaped.

  So he moved.

  He crawled over to the guard’s body and searched for the pistol. The stench of vomit grew so strong that it hurt his eyes. In the confined space of the ambulance, it was overpowering. But he continued because he could imagine no other choice.

  He felt around the body, as though creating a chalk outline. Then, reluctantly, he worked at the edges, and grimaced as he pushed his fingers through his own vomit. If there was anything he most wanted at that moment, he realized with disgust, it would be a gas mask and a set of rubber gloves.

  No gun.

  He realized that it must be under the man’s body. He closed his eyes just for a moment. He heard Sasha swear.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Fucking lock. Don’t worry; I’ll take care of it. Just get me his pistol.”

  Dead bodies were harder to move than living bodies. There was a reason for that, but it escaped Dr. Pazyryk. Perhaps it would come to him later, if he lived to see later. There was not much light, so he could not easily see the matted black weapon. He had to find it by feel. With one hand he kept the corpse pushed on its side. With the other he felt through the blood. He kept his lips compressed and tried to breathe in through a corner of his mouth in the vain hope that he could tolerate the smell. His fingers closed on the barrel of the pistol just as he threw up again.

  “Would you stop that?” said Sasha. “It smells like shit in here. Have you found the gun?”

  “It’s covered with blood.”

  “Tell me you didn’t throw up on it.”

  “Just blood.”

  A satisfying click and Dr. Pazyryk knew that Sasha was free.

  “Wipe it off and give it to me,” said Sasha as he climbed out of the cage.

  “On what?” asked Dr. Pazyryk.

  “His pants, his hair, his ass—I don’t care. Just do it and give me it to me.”

  Obediently, the doctor cleaned the pistol on his guard’s pant legs, then handed over the weapon.

  Sasha leaned toward him, and then dropped to one knee to appraise him.

  “Are you ready for this, Doctor? Freedom is on the other side of those doors and if you aren’t ready to break out of here, I’ll just leave you. You saved my life, but I can’t carry you. Can you get yourself together enough to move?”

  Freedom.

  Freedom through those doors.

  The look on Sasha’s face was fierce. He wanted revenge. No one would stop him tonight.

  Dr. Pazyryk just wanted to get as far away from these psychotics as his legs would take him.

  “I can do it.”

  “Then get up and let’s go. We’re going after that holy man who poisoned my mother. I’ll open the door and you hit the ground running. I’ll cover you.”

  “Shouldn’t you go first? You have the gun.”

  “And leave you behind without a gun?”

  The doctor considered.

  “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  Freedom lay on the other side of those doors.

  “Good. You’re tougher than I thought.”

  Sasha looked through the van windows again before opening the door just an inch.

  “Ready?”

  The doctor nodded.

  The young man flung open the door and the doctor, after a moment’s hesitation, jumped out and began running down the street. His arms pumped up and down like a true sprinter. The rush of cold, clean night air into his lungs was painful, but it was a good, bracing pain. He ran a total of twelve steps before Ivan’s driver raised his rifle and fired a bullet into his right eye. The impact of his head hitting the pavement cracked his skull, but he was already dead.

  *****

  Sasha forgot his stiff joints and launched out after he guessed the doctor had distracted whatever shooters were left behind when the others moved on the house. He felt his extended right foot slide when he hit the pavement and he went down. His pistol skittered away across the cement. As he dropped a hand to the sidewalk just outside the ambulance bumper, he looked up and saw Dr. Pazyryk take a bullet.

  The shooter was a bulky man carrying a rifle and Sasha knew right away he was in trouble. He looked over at the pistol again, but did not move, willing Vasily not to see him. Ivan stood just behind the man’s left shoulder, his face difficult to read in the darkness. Sasha stayed as he was, his legs splayed like a gymnast, breathing quietly, hoping against ridiculous odds that they would not see him. That they would walk over to inspect the doctor’s body so that he could get up and dive for his gun.

  “Get up, Sasha. You look like a fool,” called Ivan.

  Sasha slowly, very slowly, got to his feet, treasuring every moment that Vasily did not shoot him. Nonchalantly, from the corner of his eyes, he looked toward his pistol. One, maybe two long steps and a dive, grab it as he spun and then come back to one knee firing like a professional stunt shooter. But he was not a professional stunt shooter. In fact, Sasha, for all the men he had killed, was quite a bad shot. He’d had to stand very close to his victims to shoot them.

  “Go ahead,” said Ivan. “Go for your gun. Vasily is, as you must know, a bastard descendant of the great Vasili Grigorevich Zaytsev, the famous sniper who killed 242 men in one year using only a standard issue Mosin-Nagant rifle. Is that not so, Vasily?”

  His driver said nothing.

  “He speaks very little, Sasha.”

  Somewhere several miles behind Ivan, auto horns blared like angry fans whose team was losing. The lighted outline of Detroit broke the night, and Sasha knew that they must be at the edge of the blighted city, separated by blocks and blocks of darkness, where people moved in the shadows and slept on cardboard.

  He said nothing.

  “Do you know why?”

  “No, I do not know or care why.”

  “Never offend a sniper,” said Ivan.

  “Why? He will shoot me now or you will throw me back in chains. What is the difference? I will be dead either way.”

  “He does not speak because your mother had his tongue cut out for mispronouncing her name.”

  “I see.”

  “And before you die, I must tell you that your mother, too, died tonight. Congestive heart failure, perhaps.”

  “You poisoned her,” shouted Sasha.

  “Keep your voice down or I’m afraid Vasily will shoot you this moment.”

  “The doctor told me everything.”

  He pointed to Dr. Pazyryk’s body.

  “I know that it was you who convinced her to put me in chains.”

  “The doctor? Don’t you mean Hauck’s sp
y?”

  Sasha felt the blood drain from his face.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that you really are too stupid to live,” said Ivan. “Kill him now, Vasily.”

  The bastard descendent of Vasili Grigorevich Zaytsev raised his rifle into position, aiming directly at Sasha’s heart. Sasha felt warmth on his cheeks as his tears flowed—not out of fear, but for the loss of his mother. He was about to close his eyes when he saw Vasily take a bullet in the throat.

  After a moment’s confusion, Sasha looked away from the dead sniper and back toward Ivan, who stared at him in bewilderment.

  *****

  On a nearby rooftop, Evgeny looked through his scope and smiled at his handiwork. Although he did not know the man he had just shot, Dr. Pazyryk had been one of Hauck’s own, and there were rules to the game.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Brass piping and steam wisps, gauges and dials, levers and knobs as large as a fist. All around the base of the platform were scattered machines and devices that looked to Sveta as though they had been taken from the engine room of the Nautilus. A shaggy white wolf appeared in an aisle between electrical equipment and was shooed away by Drogol.

  “Beasts like Ilya and Grigor have been my only companions here beneath the city,” he told Sveta and Zoe. “They guard me day and night. Even a monster such as me must sleep.”

  “You aren’t a monster,” said Zoe.

  “But I am,” he said. “Ask this woman. Tell her, Sveta.”

  Sveta was impatient for him to climb into the tube. The moment he did and Zoe flipped the switch to start the machine was the best moment for her to make a break for it.

  “Tell her what?” she asked.

  “Tell her what you believe. Tell her you don’t think it is a beast from some other world that comes through me. Tell her you think that is only an aspect of my poor irradiated mind manifesting. You think Rasputin is an insane monster who transforms into a vicious beast but cannot admit it. You think it is Rasputin who becomes the monster. Tell her.”

  “How long have you lived?” she asked irritably.

  This appeared to confuse Drogol.