by Alex Archer
Annja looked up and found Radecki standing on the other side of the gate. As she looked on he raised his hands and slowly, mockingly, began to clap.
“A marvelous attempt,” he said with a grin. “Really top-notch.”
Her reply was less than politic.
Radecki grinned. “You had a good run. For a while there I thought you were even going to make it. But now it’s time to bring this little charade to an end.”
He squatted down, reached under the edge of the gate with his hand and pressed the stun gun he was holding against the back of her trapped leg.
Five hundred thousand volts of electricity surged through her body, making it shiver and shake against the floor of the garage. The last thing Annja saw before she descended into unconsciousness was Radecki’s face, grinning at her.
34
Annja regained consciousness slowly, as if drifting up from the depths of a deep sleep. Her thoughts were fuzzy, incomplete, and more than once the waves washed over her and dragged her down again for a time. In her more coherent moments she had the sensation of movement and would occasionally hear people talking over or around her, but she couldn’t make out what was being said. Each time, she was washed back beneath the tide and lost track of her surroundings again. Gradually the real world intruded, and at last she found herself back where she belonged.
Back in the real world.
She was unsurprised to find herself being carried along between two men, their hands gripping her under the arms and lifting her partially off the ground while her legs dragged along behind her.
What was surprising, on the other hand, was her discovery that she couldn’t move her head.
It was like having a disconnect somewhere between her brain and her muscles; the latter were being told what to do but they weren’t listening to the commands her brain was giving or they were unable to carry out the task.
And it wasn’t just her head.
The same held true for her arms.
And her legs.
And her hands and feet.
She couldn’t move at all—not even a twitch of a finger!
Annja would have groaned aloud at the discovery, except she couldn’t move her mouth.
Thoughts of all the terrible things they might have done to her to cause this condition ran unbidden through her head, and she could feel panic starting to well up from somewhere deep inside her. She knew that if she let it out she might not be able to get it under control.
Calm down, she told herself, calm down. Temporary paralysis was one of the side effects of sustaining a heavy electrical shock. Your control will come back; you just have to wait it out.
In the meantime, she could gather information about where she was and figure a way out of this mess.
Her paralysis wasn’t the only difficulty she was experiencing. Her head was pounding and she was having trouble organizing her thoughts. Her mouth was full of the taste of burned metal and she felt as though she’d been drugged, but these were all symptoms of electrical shock, as well. Like the paralysis, they would disappear with time.
Look on the bright side, she told herself. At least she could still see and hear.
It might have been a more rewarding observation if she could see something beyond the floor beneath their feet.
And yet, on second thought, that might be helpful after all, she realized. Gone was the institutional tiled floor that she’d seen after escaping her cell. In its place were flagstones held together by some kind of mortar, and the crumbling nature of both made it clear that wherever they were, the place had to be at least several hundred years old.
She’d been moved. That was clear.
But to where?
They could be anywhere, but something told Annja they hadn’t gone far. The women’s disappearances had all happened in one general area, in and around Nové Mesto, which suggested that Stone had wanted to be near the source of her prion supply. And while there were literally dozens of medieval ruins in that area, only one had any real relevance to the situation.
Only one that Annja had spent hours wandering around, so that the look and feel of the place had settled into her bones.
She recognized it now.
Csejte Castle.
With her head hanging down and her hair falling over her face, her captors probably didn’t know she was conscious, a fact that was borne out just moments later when her two captors started talking.
“What are we doing here?”
The voice came from the man on her left. It took her a few seconds, but she recognized it as belonging to Owens.
“We’re taking care of a problem. Something that should have been done the minute she stuck her nose where it didn’t belong.”
There was no mistaking the voice of the man on her right.
Radecki.
Owens apparently didn’t like the sound of that. “You brought me in to supervise the lab. I’m not some hired killer.”
Radecki laughed. “No? Then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought. A hired killer is exactly what you are. Or did you think all those women survived the things you’ve been doing to them?”
“That’s different!” Owens answered hotly. “What I’ve done has been in the name of science! This is...cold-blooded murder!”
Radecki came to a sudden halt, causing Annja’s head to jerk about as Owens took another step. She instinctively tightened her neck muscles to avoid injury and was stunned when she felt them respond.
“I don’t care what you call it,” Radecki said in a deceptively calm voice. “You will do as you’re told or I’ll hook you up to one of your own machines and let it suck you drier than the Gobi Desert. Understood?”
Owens was smart enough to realize he’d gone too far. “Understood,” he said, without complaint this time.
They started walking again, dragging Annja along, and she used the cover of the movement to test her body’s responses. It seemed the numbness was slowly going away. She could move her mouth and facial muscles now, as well as her neck.
It must have been the stun gun, she thought. Now the effects were wearing off and she was starting to regain some control.
The question was whether she’d get back enough control in time to get her out of this mess.
As they dragged her along the passageway, Annja focused all her attention on the fingers of her left hand.
Nothing happened.
She tried again, turning her head slightly so she could see her fingers as she directed her thoughts at them, willing them to bend, just a little bit.
They didn’t respond.
Her hands were still as good as dead.
It’s okay. You’ll get there. Just gonna take some time.
But she didn’t have time to spare.
Owens and Radecki dragged her around corners, along several passageways and down a flight of stairs. They had to stop several times along the way to give Radecki a chance to rest; the wound in his abdomen was obviously making it difficult. They continued down another hallway until they reached the end, at which point they entered a room.
Annja recognized it right away, and she felt her heart rate accelerate as she considered what Radecki intended for her. Based on where they were standing, she knew it wasn’t going to be good.
A large sunken tub sat in the center of the room and took up most of the space, leaving a two-foot walkway surrounding it on all sides. At the far end of the tub, a metal support structure shaped like an inverted Y rose from the edge, standing stark and alone in the beam of their flashlights.
“What is that?” Owens asked.
Annja didn’t need to wait for Radecki’s answer to know she was looking at the iron framework from which Elizabeth Báthory had allegedly hung her victims while their blood drained out of them into the bath below.
It also told her in no uncertain terms that she was in serious trouble.
“Over here,” Radecki said, and led the way around the side of the tub to the base of the Y. When they reached it, he said, “Put her down and help me with this.”
Annja was left lying on her back. Her head lolled to one side, pointed away from where the two men were working. She was literally in the dark, as they took their flashlights with them.
That was fine with Annja; it gave her a chance to turn her head toward them under the cover of darkness. She waited a moment to make sure neither of them had noticed and then cracked her eyes open the tiniest bit, just enough to see what they were doing without advertising that she was conscious.
Owens was squatting next to the Y, his back to Annja. He appeared to be tugging at something. Radecki stood nearby, holding both lights so Owens could see what he was doing. Annja didn’t need to see them to know what was happening; she’d examined the device pretty thoroughly when she’d been filming the other day.
At the base of the Y was a mechanism that controlled the frame’s movement. When a thick iron pin was removed, a hinge allowed the Y to be lowered to the ground so the latest victim could be strapped into place. Once that was completed, the Y could be raised back up and the pin returned to its rightful place, holding the Y upright and allowing the victim’s blood to drain downward into the bath.
It took Owens a few minutes to get the pin out, but after that it was relatively smooth sailing. The two men lowered the frame and then turned back to get Annja. She quickly closed her eyes and let her head and right hand hang limp like the rest of her limbs, not wanting to give anything away until she was ready to make her move. It wasn’t easy; it took everything she could muster not to fight them off the minute they laid their hands on her.
They stretched her out atop the frame, with her spine against the center post and her feet together at the base. Annja knew that if she was going to get out of here she couldn’t allow them to secure her in place, so she cracked her eyes open just enough that she could keep them in view while preparing to make her move. Her legs still wouldn’t obey her, but her right arm was almost fully under her control and her left arm wasn’t too far behind. All she needed was a few more minutes.
Radecki stepped out of sight for a moment, and when he returned he was carrying several short lengths of rope, each about a yard long.
Her time had just officially run out.
35
Owens grabbed her by the ankles while Radecki readied the ropes. Neither of them was paying any real attention to her. It was the perfect opportunity to take control of the situation.
Now or never.
Radecki suddenly stood up. “Finish tying her feet,” he said to Owens. “I’ll take care of her hands.”
Radecki stepped over her legs and squatted down in the space between her outstretched arm and her torso, intent on lashing her wrist to the brace. This close she could see that he had bandages wrapped around his lower torso, no doubt covering the stab wound she’d given him earlier.
He didn’t even spare her a glance...had no idea she was conscious.
She considered summoning the sword but decided against it. Her left arm was still weak, and if she dropped the sword, she’d lose the element of surprise.
Annja couldn’t let him tie her down, so sword or no sword, she had to make her move and she had to do it now.
As Radecki reached for her arm, she snatched it back, causing him to start in surprise and turn in her direction. As his body opened up, Annja drove a fist right into the spot where she’d stabbed him earlier.
Radecki’s howl of pain filled the room, echoing off the stone walls as he involuntarily hunched over his injury. That brought his head down and forward, which was exactly what Annja had hoped would happen. Before he had time to recover, she drew her arm across her body and then snapped it back out, slamming the base of her fist into Radecki’s temple.
The cop dropped flat, clearly dazed. Annja had hoped the blow would be enough to render him unconscious, but she wasn’t that lucky. Even as she looked on, Radecki pushed himself up on his palms, shaking his head, clearly trying to get back up.
Oh, no, you don’t.
Annja brought her arm up, ready to deliver another blow, only to have her aim thrown off at the last moment. As a result, her fist careered off Radecki’s shoulder instead of slamming into his temple.
“I’ve got her! I’ve got her!” she heard Owens shout.
Looking down toward her feet, Annja saw Owens squatting there, his hands around her ankle, and realized that he must have pulled on her leg in the moment before she’d struck. She still couldn’t feel that limb, so she’d had no idea that he’d laid hands on her.
But she knew now, and she was none too happy about it. Watching him holding her leg down and shouting for his partner sent a white-hot fury raging through her veins.
She reacted almost without thought, and her foot was halfway to Owens’s face before she’d even realized she could feel her left leg well enough to kick with it.
Owens probably didn’t know what hit him. One minute he was shouting to his partner and the next Annja’s boot was striking him square in the bridge of the nose, breaking it with an audible crack. Unfortunately for him, he was crouched at the edge of the sunken tub when the kick landed and, as a result, he tumbled to the bottom of the bath.
The meaty thud that reached Annja’s ears just seconds after Owens disappeared didn’t bode well for the man’s health. Annja didn’t know how badly he was injured, but either way it seemed Dr. Owens was no longer a threat.
Annja turned toward Radecki, only to discover the hard way that he wasn’t out of the fight quite yet when he smashed her across the jaw with a vicious haymaker.
Annja saw it coming at the last second and rolled her head with the blow so it didn’t have as much impact. She blocked the next punches and then managed to sneak one of her own past Radecki’s defenses, rocking the man’s head back just as he’d done to her moments before, dazing him.
Annja took advantage of that brief lull to try to scramble to her feet, only to have her right leg collapse under her, still too numb to hold her weight. She ended up sprawled on the floor, staring at Radecki.
He didn’t waste any time capitalizing on her misfortune. Radecki lurched to his feet, pulling something out of his pocket as he did so, and threw himself atop her. For a moment Annja thought he was just trying to pin her to the floor, but then she felt something jab her thigh.
Looking down, she found an autoinjector device sticking out of her leg.
He’d drugged her!
Not again.
Suddenly frightened, Annja batted the injector away and stared up at him.
“What did you do?”
Laughing, Radecki leaned back, a smug grin on his face. He was already starting to relax, as if the fight was over and Annja just hadn’t realized it yet.
Adrenaline was pouring through her system, both in reaction to the fight and her fear of whatever Radecki had injected her with, and it did what time alone had not yet managed to do—it freed the rest of her muscles from their reaction to the stun gun. As Radecki’s grip on her loosened, Annja fought back.
She reached up and grabbed Radecki’s arm, pulling it sideways so he started to turn as he fell toward her. At the same time she scythed her legs up, ignoring the pain in her right thigh, wrapping one leg around his head so that his neck was trapped in the crook of her knee. She locked her foot behind her other knee and began to squeeze her legs together as hard as she could while pulling his arm forward across her.
For a second Radecki only stared at her with a confused expression on his face, but as she began to bear down, using her legs to choke the air from his
brain, the danger of his position finally set in. He reached around the back of his head and tried to pull Annja’s legs apart, to release the crushing pressure that was starting to build on his neck, but her hold was cinched in tight, and it was going to take a lot more than the strength Radecki had in a single arm to break it. He wasted a few precious seconds trying and then, when that didn’t work, began to flail at her with his free arm. His position made it hard for him to land a blow with any significant force, though, and as the seconds ticked by his strikes became weaker and weaker.
Eventually, they stopped altogether.
Annja held on for another second or two when Radecki slumped across her, wanting to be sure he wasn’t faking it. She counted to ten and then released her hold, pushing his now-limp body off her own and wondering as she did so if she’d managed to kill him.
As it turned out, she hadn’t. When she recovered enough to check his pulse, she was grateful to find one. It was thin and shaky, but it was there. Officer Radecki would live to stand trial after all—a fact that Annja found rather uplifting given the circumstances.
She limped over to the discarded injector and picked it up, looking for some indication of what it might have contained. A label or something similar would have been very helpful, but the sleek gray case of the injection device was devoid of any markings. It didn’t even have a manufacturer’s label. She slipped it into her pocket anyway; maybe a lab test might reveal something later.
If there was a later.
Whatever Radecki had injected her with was starting to take effect. She could feel herself getting woozy, and her vision was starting to blur. She needed to get medical attention and she needed to do so quickly.
The fact that she didn’t know what had been in the injector complicated things. Radecki could have been trying to kill her or he could have been trying to knock her out. Frankly, neither option was all that attractive.
She limped back to Radecki’s unconscious form and knelt down to search him, coming away with a digital key card, a cell phone and a set of car keys for her trouble. She pocketed the key card and the keys, then swiped the screen on the phone with her thumb. To her surprise, it wasn’t locked. Even better, when the screen lit up she saw four green bars in the upper right corner, indicating a healthy signal.