WINDOW OF TIME

by DJ Erfert

  The windows with the bars on them also had curtains covering them from the inside, obscuring the interior. She knew that Von Strauss and two of her colleagues were definitely inside this one. Taking out the gun from her vest’s holster, she held it down by her thigh as she crept to the corner.

  The two guards were leaning against the block wall close to thirty feet from where Lucy watched, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly. After a couple of cleansing breaths to clear her mind, and to steady her hand, she aimed and shot a Ketamine dart into the neck of the closest man. As he silently slumped to the ground, the other man swatted at the sting in his neck a moment before he fell on top of his buddy.

  “Dusty, Johnny, go get them and bring them back here—fast.” Lucy stepped out and gave her friends cover with her silencer-tipped 45-caliber automatic while they ran along the dirt path. They had the two men behind the building before she let out her held breath. It was then that she took the time to take out two replacement darts from her vest pocket and slide them into her special gun. The high-powered dart gun designed for capturing escaped zoo animals held only four darts at once. Lucy didn’t want to use them up completely before reloading.

  “Check their pockets,” Lucy whispered. “Look for keys.”

  Johnny reached into the one man’s front pocket. “You holding up okay?”

  “I’m trying not to think about me. Sunny needs us more than my silly fever needs attention.”

  “Got some.” Dusty lifted a small ring of keys from the second man’s pocket.

  “Good.” Lucy took them from his fingers and studied them. There were three keys. One obviously belonged to a vehicle. The Mercedes symbol stamped into the metal matched the large truck parked near the gate. The other two belonged to building doors. One interior and the other, a larger one, looked like a key to an exterior door. Could that door be the one they were guarding? Smiling, Lucy closed her fingers around the cool metal.

  “How long will the sedative last?” Dusty asked.

  Moving to the edge of building again, Lucy peered around to the front, toward the door again. “I’d guess about four hours.” Glancing back at the firefighter turned covert operative, she grinned. “At least that’s how long it would keep a horse asleep. Come on. Let’s go.” Lucy didn’t take more than a few steps before she saw movement across the courtyard. Two people headed their way. “Guys, get back behind the building—quick!” She heard their footfalls retreating, but Lucy didn’t follow them.

  “Lucy—”

  “Quiet!” Taking her dart gun out again, Lucy took careful aim at the man with his big hand around Sunny’s upper arm.

  Twenty-eight

  Sunny’s hands were behind her back. Lucy assumed her wrists were tied. It was too dark to see her clearly, but she wasn’t limping. Lucy considered that a good sign. They were halfway across the courtyard when the man hesitated. He was looking toward the door where the two guards were supposed to be standing watch. Lucy couldn’t wait any longer. She took her shot, counted to one, and ran as the man fell at Sunny’s feet.

  “Lucy,” Sunny said, crying, “I’m—”

  “Be quiet,” Lucy snapped softly as she took out her switchblade and sliced through the thin rope binding Sunny’s wrists together. Lucy then grabbed the man and began to drag him back to where she had the other men stashed. She made it as far as the door before Johnny moved her aside and took over. Dusty swept Sunny into his arms and carried her behind the building.

  Lucy searched the unconscious man. Although she didn’t find Sunny’s phone like she hoped, Lucy did find the man’s passport and US currency in his pocket. She pocketed the ID and gave him back his money.

  “I’m sorry to break up your reunion, but I need to know where Adam is.” Lucy tapped Sunny on her back. “Come on, get your head back in the game.”

  Sunny turned her face toward Lucy. In the moonlight, the new bruises on her cheek showed up like neon, and she held her left wrist tight to her chest with her right hand. Lucy’s heart stopped when she let herself think what Sunny might have gone through. “I’m sorry,” Lucy said as she gently pressed her hand to Sunny’s shoulder, “but we don’t have much time. Where’s Adam?”

  “They still have him. I’m so sorry, Lucy,” Sunny whispered. “I just wanted to help—”

  “Don’t worry about it. This may have worked out better.” She motioned toward inside the building. “I want you to check on some people while I go get Adam, and then Dusty can—” Lucy glanced at her bruised face. “Dusty can check you out.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Johnny said quickly.

  “I know.” Lucy reloaded her dart gun. She then took the keys from her pocket. “Let’s all get inside this time.” She peeked around the corner of the building again. “Okay, it’s clear.” Lucy moved along the side of the building toward the door, keeping her stare on the center of the compound.

  The guards’ weapons were still on the ground. “Johnny, pick up the rifles.” As he did what she told him, Lucy slipped the large key into the doorknob and gently twisted, eliciting a quiet click as the metal tumbler turned. Before she pushed the door open, she pulled her dart gun from the holster; only then did she step inside. The rest of her team came in immediately behind her.

  The foyer was empty, lit by a single light bulb suspended from the ceiling. A small table and a wooden chair stood along one wall.

  Lucy looked down the long hallway that ran through the center of the building. The dim light revealed four doors evenly spaced, lining both sides of the hall. They were closed and most likely locked. She noticed Dusty kept his gun at the ready. She holstered her gun and held out her hand, silently telling all three to stay put.

  Lucy went to the first door. Kneeling down, she looked under at the small space between the floor and bottom of the door. The weak light meant someone was inside. Using the key with the small head, she inserted it into the lock and cringed at the audible click. Now she was committed. Whoever sat behind the door must have heard her turn the knob.

  There was a single, low-watt light bulb tucked up against the ceiling in the center of the room, illuminating the woman lying on a narrow cot. Her blue eyes were rimmed in red and rounded from surprise, or fright. Her clothes were similar to hospital scrubs and very plain. When she saw Lucy enter she jumped up from her meager bed and stood like she was ready to run. Instead of fleeing out the open door, she stared at Lucy as if she remembered her from somewhere. Or maybe the look in her watery eyes was hope.

  Lucy held out her hands, palms up, showing her she meant her no harm. “My name is Lucy James. Are you Dr. Helga Von Strauss?”

  “Von Strauss?” Sunny asked, stepping into the small room. Lucy squinted a disapproving glare at the doctor for disobeying her order about staying in the foyer.

  A flood of tears spilled over the woman’s lashes. “Yah.” Her lips quivered briefly into a hopeful smile when she asked, “Did my husband send you to rescue me?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m sure he doesn’t know you’re here.” Lucy put her index finger to her lips. Stepping closer, she said, “A contact of mine took your picture last week, and now we’re here to take you home.” Glancing at the doorway, she saw Johnny watching them. She held back another critical stare.

  Sunny asked, “Where are your three companions?”

  Lucy didn’t expect more tears from the German scientist.

  “We came here when we were told this facility was capable of handling genetic research. But when we got here, we were taken captive, and they wouldn’t let us go. When we wouldn’t cooperate with their experiments, they shot our partner in front of us and threatened to shoot my other partner if we didn’t help them with their research.”

  Helga whispered as she reached out to Lucy, “How can—can you rescue us from here?”

  Lucy gripped the woman’s cool hand and smiled. “I have a plan. Where are your other partners?”

  The woman’s free hand went directly to Lucy’s forehead. “You ar
e ill with fever.”

  “Lucy has pneumonia,” Sunny said.

  Sighing, Lucy nodded. “That’s why I’d like to get this done. So I can go home and crawl into bed.” Dusty stood next to Johnny, watching, when Lucy asked, “Do you know where your companions are being held in this building?”

  Helga sat down on her bed and pulled on her shoes. “I don’t know which rooms Herman and Klaus are in, but I do not believe they share a room.” Reaching under her bed, she pulled out a single duffle bag. “I only see my room and the room where we are forced to do work.” She stood up, evidently ready to leave her prison cell.

  The tiny hairs on the back of Lucy’s neck prickled. It could be nothing more than another course of chills, but then it also could be an idea trying to surface through her fevered brain. When that little voice in her head reached out to her, it was always better to listen. “Dr. Von Strauss, what are you working on?”

  Helga tensed. “Something bad … dealing with a retrovirus.” She stepped closer and softened her voice. “I only work on part of equation, but these men wanted us to create a drug-resistant, highly infectious form of influenza that not only is contagious in fresh water, but reproduces exponentially in uninfected water. We’ve succeeded in doing that much, but salt water kills the virus very quickly. We have yet to solve that problem.”

  Lucy wiped her sweaty forehead with her sleeve. “That’s fortunate. It’s probably what’s kept you alive this long.” She nodded toward the front door. “Can you tell me which building you work in?” Over the next two minutes, Lucy learned as much as she could from the research scientist about the compound and the camp. She and her partners had been kept in the dark in more than one way. They literally weren’t allowed to talk to each other while they worked, nor were they allowed to spend any time outside in the sun, which was the reason the satellite never picked up their images. She also learned the layout of the building that held the laboratory, too.

  The cells where Lucy found the other two doctors were exactly like Helga’s, void of anything except a bed and toilet, but behind one door was a housekeeping closet which had metal shelves stocked with cleaning supplies and paper goods. She couldn’t take the three scientists on her extended mission. They needed to stay in a safe place until they left, but under the circumstances there wasn’t any way that she could ask them to stay another minute in the cells.

  “Sunny, I need you to stay with the doctors while I spring Adam and go to the lab and download their computers. You too, Dusty. I want you to keep them safe.” Somehow, Lucy knew he wouldn’t give her an argument.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Dusty nodded while staring at Sunny.

  “We’ll try to hurry.” Touching Helga’s arm, Lucy leaned closer. “Please, try to keep your voices down to a whisper. I don’t want anybody from outside the building to accidentally hear you talking. Okay?”

  Nodding, Helga smiled through her tears. “Yah. I understand. And thank you.”

  The unexpected hug Lucy received brought burning tears to her throat. Three months without conversation was worse than anything she could think of, and to know your dear friends were just on the other side of a couple of walls was akin to torture.

  “Wait a minute.” Lucy took the duct tape from her pack. The closet door automatically locked every time it closed. Kneeling down and using a strip of duct tape, Lucy pushed in the door’s throw and taped it securely inside the chamber. Johnny knelt down next to her and watched.

  “Clever. I’d forgotten that old trick,” Johnny said quietly. “Now the door can open and close without latching. They shouldn’t feel so frightened.”

  The tenderness in his voice melted Lucy’s heart.

  “Thank you,” Lucy whispered. “We should go now.” After she stood up, she lost her balance, falling against Johnny.

  “Lucy, what happened?” He had her by the shoulders.

  “I—I just got a little dizzy.”

  “It is her illness,” Helga said softly.

  “It’s passed already.” Pushing out of her boyfriend’s arms, Lucy took a cleansing breath and reached for another cough drop.

  “This isn’t good,” Dusty said.

  “I think you’re the master of the understatement,” Sunny whispered.

  “Lucy, can you do this?” Johnny asked.

  “Twenty minutes. I can last another twenty minutes. Then I promise to spend the whole way home in bed.” Staring up into Johnny’s chocolate brown eyes, she said, “Okay?”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Twenty-nine

  Lucy kept them in the deep shadows of the night and always at the back of the buildings near the fence. The few outdoor lights suspended under the roof’s overhangs helped them stay out of sight while she studied the other buildings. The one directly adjacent held the laboratory Helga and her partners were led to every morning under gunpoint. It had a connected bathroom for showering and washing their clothes and a small kitchenette where they ate their meals in torturous silence.

  The building next to that had light smoke spiraling slowly out of a ventilation pipe. Lucy figured it was their mess hall, possibly even where the men bunked at night. Before moving from their hiding place, Lucy used her paintball gun and covered the lens of the security camera on the building next to them, making it useless. They made their way around to the next building in the pinwheel. It didn’t seem anybody from the compound had security duty. She’d disabled two cameras, and nobody had come out to check on them.

  Lucy knelt in the sand, dropping the only pack Johnny would let her carry, and leaned heavily against the wall. It was hard to think. The double dose of ibuprofen Lucy had ingested before they left the plane felt like it hadn’t taken effect yet. Or maybe the meager medication couldn’t fight against the infection effectively. The fever still had a solid hold on her body. Between the shivering chills and sweat producing hot flashes, trying to concentrate was a trial in perseverance.

  “Lu?” Johnny asked.

  “I’m okay,” Lucy said quietly, turning to face Johnny. “This is the building where they interrogated Sunny. Hopefully they haven’t moved Adam. We’ll go into the hallway together, but I’m going into the interrogation room alone.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  She leaned closer to his worried face. “If you hear things go wrong, I want you to get out. Go the same way we came and get back to Dusty. He’ll get you guys out of here and back to the plane.”

  “I won’t leave you,” Johnny said, grasping her hand.

  Dusty’s voice came through their earpieces. “Lucy, we’re in this thing together.”

  Gazing into Johnny’s dark eyes, she took in a deep, shaky breath, trying to accept their help without feeling cornered. Lucy nodded. “Then stay close. I’m going to do this quickly.”

  After she checked her dart gun one more time, Lucy shouldered her backpack and crept around the corner of the building, holding the gun down by her leg. The sound of a man’s shouting reverberated through the window as she ducked underneath it. According to Sunny, three men had questioned her. Adam had been tied up but kept in the corner of the room and made to watch her being beaten. One man brought her to the jail building, which left two men inside with Adam. Hopefully. Anything could change in a few minutes. Lucy knew that better than anybody.

  Lucy grasped the doorknob and gave it a gentle twist. It turned under the pressure. With a quick push, Lucy confidently walked into the small foyer. The man sitting next to the table eating his evening meal looked up and received a dart in his neck before he could put down his fork or let out a warning. Sunny didn’t tell her about him.

  As she walked to the first door on the right, Lucy replaced the spent dart. The door wasn’t locked either, and it opened easily with a twist of the knob. Adam was tied to a wooden chair positioned in the middle of the room. One man stood over Adam and readied his fist to strike—obviously not for the first time. He received the first dart before Lucy turned the gun on the two men advanc
ing on her. The shout that one was able to utter went unheard beyond the concrete block walls of the interrogation building.

  “Go get that guy from the lobby and bring him in here,” Lucy said to Johnny as she took out her switchblade and stepped over the unconscious man in front of Adam.

  “Lucy,” Adam said, slurring her name. “Glad you’re here.”

  Her sharp blade sliced through the bindings tying his hands behind the chair. “I bet you are. Can you walk?” Lucy asked, looking at his knees and cutting the rope holding his legs to the chair before putting the knife away.

  “I’ll do my best,” he said, rubbing his bruised wrists. “Sunny was taken out of here about five minutes ago—”

  Lucy quickly reloaded her darts. “Don’t worry. We got her.” Adam stood up—for a moment. His swollen knee buckled, and he ended up leaning against Lucy. He was heavier than he looked. Johnny took over holding Adam up after he dragged the other unconscious man into the room. “We need to get out of here.” Lucy eyed a metal table next to the door. Two phones plus three syringes filled with cloudy fluid sat on a folded cloth.

  “Adam, did they inject you with anything?” she asked, pocketing the two phones.

  Adam shook his head. “No, but they were about to.”

  “How about Sunny?”

  Adam shook his head again. “But they threatened it.”

  Dusty answered, “No, she didn’t get anything but knuckles. And I’m pretty sure her left arm has a hairline fracture.”