Dead Man's Switch

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “Oh.” Ten seconds passed. “Now. But that’s not the photo. It’s one of you when you were about five years old. In a cowboy outfit.”

  “She must have changed it,” King said. He was impressed that his dad could remember which photo had been on the home screen. King had deliberately mentioned a different photo as a test. If Mack had agreed the dock photo was on the screen, the game would have been over. But King wasn’t through with this. He’d prove Murdoch wrong and then call Murdoch again and shorten the deadline to two hours.

  “So,” King said. “I’m about to end this call on my end. Then I’m going to call you on Mom’s iPhone using FaceTime.”

  “You mean that thing where you can talk to each other on video, right? That’s so Dick Tracey to me.”

  “Huh?” King said.

  “Dick Tracey.” Short pause. “Sorry. See, this shows how much things have changed since I was a kid. Dick Tracy was a comic book detective set in the future. He had a wristwatch that he used to make phone calls. Video calls too. It was cool to us as kids, but nobody really believed or expected it would ever happen.”

  “Yeah,” King said. “Like your MacGyver guy?”

  “MacGyver. I’m impressed you know about MacGyver. My favorite show when I was a kid.”

  Mack’s acting was good, pretending last night’s conversation hadn’t happened.

  King went along with it. “Dick Tracy. Okay, I’m about to Dick Tracy you. Just watch the screen and hit Accept, and then we’ll be connected.”

  “Why are we doing all this?” Mack said. “You could just walk over here from MJ’s house.”

  “Part of my project,” King said. “How’s that?”

  “Go for it,” Mack said. “But if I mess up, call me back on my cell.”

  Oh, King thought. That’s how they are going to play it. Pretend that Mack doesn’t know how to accept an incoming FaceTime request.

  Still, King just realized he’d lost this game. He’d hit FaceTime, Mack wouldn’t answer because he couldn’t answer where he was in a prison cell, King would have to call back to Mack’s cell, and Mack would apologize for getting the technology wrong, and King would be no closer to proving to Murdoch that he knew Murdoch was holding Mack as a hostage. It’s probably why Murdoch had allowed Mack to have his cell phone. So Mack could answer anyone who called and pretend everything was okay.

  King wasn’t too upset about this. He was just glad Mack was still alive. Murdoch was in a tight place and would have to do something before the three-hour deadline was over.

  Then King tried to remember. What kind of signal shows that you’re trying to FaceTime someone when his iPhone is shut off? Does it show unavailable, or does it try to ring through until you give up and end the attempt?

  One way to find out.

  “Well,” he said to Mack. “Here goes. I’m about to end the call on your cell. Hopefully you’ll figure out how to answer on Mom’s iPhone.”

  It took King about ten seconds to put his Mom’s cell number into the iPhone he was using, which was the one he’d found in a tree that started all of this.

  When that was ready, King made the FaceTime attempt. And was startled when Mack’s face appeared on the screen.

  “What?” King said. “It’s you. You’ve got her phone?”

  “Well, you made me do it,” Mack said.

  “How’s the battery level?” King asked. “Top of screen. Little battery symbol.”

  “Red,” Mack said. “I’m going to guess that’s not good.”

  “No,” King answered. “We’ll have to talk fast.” If you’re really holding Mom’s iPhone.

  Mack peered at the screen, something obvious through the video. “Where are you? That doesn’t look like MJ’s house.”

  King fought his confusion. His dad had pushed King off a cliff the night before. With King in a hang glider. Wearing a wet suit and flippers. How could Mack actually expect that King was at MJ’s house?

  “Look at the top of the screen,” King said. He was watching his own iPhone screen so he knew he was describing it accurately. “There’s a symbol of an arrow chasing another arrow. If you touch that symbol, the phone will switch to the rear camera.”

  “Rear? This thing has two cameras? Mack shook his head, a movement clear in the video conversation. “Dick Tracey had nothing on this.”

  King saw his dad’s finger approach the screen and then saw the transition. And unbelievably, he saw some of the unfinished pottery that Ella had been working on before the coma.

  “Mack,” King said. “Can you turn in a circle and show me all of the room?”

  “Must be some weird project you are working on with MJ,” Mack said.

  On his own iPhone, King saw the panoramic view of his mom’s pottery room as Mack made a slow circle. All 360 degrees.

  This was insane. What was going on? Murdoch had actually sent Mack back to the house after capturing him?

  But why?

  Maybe Murdoch had kept using the threat of hurting Ella as a way to force Mack to pretend nothing had happened. Maybe Murdoch figured that was easier than holding Mack hostage. However, if Mack truly was alone—and it looked like he was—Mack would be able to speak the truth.

  “Hey,” King said. “Can you hit the reverse button again so I can see you?”

  “Sure. This is easy. Maybe I should get one of these things.”

  His dad’s face appeared in the screen again.

  “Mack,” King said. “You’re alone in the house, right?”

  “Already told you that.” Mack’s expression seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “So you can talk freely.”

  Mack frowned. “Of course.”

  “Then tell me this,” King said. “How did you escape the guys who were chasing us last night through the forbidden zone?”

  Mack’s frown deepened. “Son, I truly have no idea what you’re talking about. Can you help me out on this?”

  The screen went black.

  Mack had been using Ella’s iPhone. The battery was nearly dead. And it seemed Mack had no idea of what had happened the night before.

  Or Mack was lying because somehow he was part of it and had decided to hang up to avoid more questions.

  Nothing made sense to King.

  There was only one thing to do.

  Wait. Handcuffed to his mom’s hospital bed. With the key to the handcuffs discarded in a dumpster, far out of his reach.

  CHAPTER 43

  Five minutes passed with King listening to the slow rise and fall of Ella’s breathing.

  It occurred to him that since walking outside of the old prison building the night before, this was the first time he could slow down and let his mind wander. He couldn’t describe it as his first moment to relax. No way was he relaxed. He felt like a guitar string just before the last turn of the tuning peg snapped it.

  But since walking out of the old prison building, he had constantly been on the move, focused and living in each moment. From pepper spraying the warden, to the terror of the pursuit on the island, to the determined stroke after stroke to get him across the sound, to his checklist of tasks since arriving on the mainland to be ready for whatever happened here in the hospital.

  King allowed himself to become aware of his own breathing. The rise and fall of his own chest. He didn’t like this, the time to think.

  Because then he would have to wonder about the strange conversation with his father and all that it might imply. Maybe, somehow, Mack really was part of some of this. The money in his account, the surveillance tapes, the...

  King ordered himself to stop thinking. He focused on breathing.

  But that only reminded him of the helplessness of his mother. Near enough that he could reach out and brush away some of the hair that had fallen across her forehead. Yet so achingly far away.

  And again her breathing reminded him of how Mack had described going into King’s room when King was a baby just to listen and be reassured.

  It took Kin
g a second to realize that tears were rolling down his cheek. Could have been the stress. A reaction to exhaustion. But King knew the truth. It was the realization of how much he loved Mack and Ella, and how it hurt that it all seemed to have been destroyed. How much his love and respect for Mack meant to him, and how much he was afraid that what he was doing now would lead to an awful discovery that Mack was not the person he appeared to be since King’s first memory of reaching up for Mack’s hand.

  As he wiped away the tears with his free hand, the big, dark-bearded orderly entered the room again.

  “Sorry,” the orderly said. Soft, like he meant it. “Need to adjust the bed.”

  A hospital tag showed his name. Jerome Claridon.

  He almost brushed King, passing close to King’s chair. King, of course, couldn’t move. Not without exposing the set of handcuffs hidden beneath the blanket. It still wasn’t time for anyone to learn about the handcuffs.

  Jerome was standing directly behind King’s chair.

  King heard the whine of an electric engine and saw the part of the bed beneath his mother’s upper body adjust at an upward angle.

  Then he felt a sting in the meat of his right shoulder.

  He spun his head.

  There was a hand on his shoulder, the big hand of the orderly. With a hypodermic needle held expertly in the large fingers.

  The other hand shot down to King’s upper arm.

  “Hold steady,” Jerome said. “You don’t want to break the needle off in your arm.”

  King was helpless. His hand handcuffed to the bed. He reached up with his right hand toward his right shoulder but had no leverage.

  It didn’t matter anyway.

  Jerome pulled the hypo loose.

  “We’re going to go for a walk,” Jerome said. “Don’t fight me on this, or your mother will pay for it.”

  King winced. He wished his left hand was free so he could reach across and rub his right shoulder. But he was glad his left hand wasn’t free. Because he wasn’t going to go for a walk.

  “Staying,” King said. He pulled off the blanket, exposing the set of handcuffs that secured him to the bed railing. “And going to yell for help, so don’t...”

  What he wanted to say was Don’t do anything to Ella.

  But what came out seemed to be slow motion babble. Strange, he thought. His brain was telling his mouth what to say, but his mouth wouldn’t follow directions.

  He watched in fascination—as if he were having an out-of-body experience—while the big orderly stepped in front of him and pulled out a pair of bolt cutters that he’d hidden in his shirt behind his back, just as King had hidden the handcuffs.

  Wow, King thought. Bolt cutters. Cool. The handles are long enough to give amazing leverage. Wow. A person could shear right though chain links with it.

  Wow. And cool, King thought. Look at the orderly reach out to cut the handcuff links.

  Hang on, King thought. If he does that, I won’t be handcuffed anymore. That’s not good, right?

  In horrible slow motion, he tried to twist and struggle with his left hand, bucking his wrist up and down to avoid the blades of the cutters.

  Wow. And cool, King thought. My hand isn’t moving. My brain is telling my hand to move, but my hand isn’t listening. He was amazed that he felt so rubbery and weak.

  Wow. And cool, King thought. Look at that. The handcuff is snapped in two.

  “Come on,” Jerome said, reaching down to grasp King by his right elbow and lifting him out of the chair. “Time to go.”

  Wow. And cool, King thought. Look at me. I’m walking. With this Jerome dude.

  Then he began to lose conscious thought. It seemed like the ending of a movie, where the outer edges of the screen turn black and the black fills in more and more until there’s only a little circle remaining in the center that’s not black anymore, and then even that little circle disappears.

  CHAPTER 44

  Strictly speaking, King didn’t wake from unconsciousness. Instead, he gradually became aware of his surroundings, of the sounds and smells and a vibration and humming that took him a long time to understand.

  He was thirsty, the interior of his mouth puckered as if he had been sucking on sand.

  He was laying on a piece of loose carpet in the back of a cargo van. No windows. Just ribbed walls of bare sheet metal. It smelled like paint, and splashes of various colors against the walls confirmed the cargo van’s previous use. The van now had a different mission, King thought grimly, as he tried to shift into a comfortable position on the carpet. He was a slab of meat, hands and feet bound. He glanced down at his ankles and saw the white adhesive tape that medical people used to hold gauze in place over wounds. Made sense, if he’d been taken away by the orderly. He couldn’t tell. He was unable to see the driver because of a half wall directly behind the driver’s seat.

  He was unable to see his hands. They were behind his back, and every bump hurt because of the tension it put against his shoulders.

  The bumps and vibration were from the movement of the cargo van. An abrasive humming sound gave King an indication of the speed of the vehicle. Highway speed. He was moving a mile a minute away from the hospital.

  King had no idea how long he’d been in the twilight zone of whatever pharmaceutical had been injected into his shoulder.

  The fact that he had not been blindfolded worried King. A lot. It meant whoever was using this cargo van to transport a bound human instead of cans of paint really didn’t care what the human witnessed.

  If that were the case, King could think of nothing good that was ahead of him. Not caring if there was a witness indicated you also didn’t care for the witness. Because the witness wasn’t going to be a witness for long.

  King looked for anything that might be sharp enough to cut at the edge of the tape on his wrists. He wanted to see a sheet-metal screw sticking out from the wall or floor of the cargo van.

  He told himself he wasn’t going to become a dead witness without a fight.

  Maybe a half hour later, the van rolled to a stop. From his position, King still couldn’t see the driver. But he heard the driver’s door open and close. He heard footsteps as the driver walked around the van. That told King they were on hard ground. Asphalt parking lot maybe.

  The rear van door opened. King had expected that. He kept his eyes closed. He had not had any luck finding something sharp to cut through the adhesive tape. Maybe he could try the element of surprise.

  He waited until he sensed a shadow and then kicked upward as hard as he could. His feet met no resistance.

  “Think I’m stupid?” It was the orderly’s voice.

  King opened his eyes, and the brightness hurt. Beyond the orderly’s shoulders, he caught a glimpse of snowy mountain peaks. They’d moved a long way from Tacoma.

  The large man rolled King over. “Don’t kick, okay? I’ll just have to hurt you.”

  King kicked anyway. He wasn’t going to be a passive victim, and everything about the situation told him he was going to get hurt one way or another.

  Something thumped his head. A fist. Jerome’s fist.

  “Enough,” Jerome said.

  “Why are you doing this?” King asked.

  “Don’t know,” Jerome said. “Don’t care. I just listen to a voice on the other end of the phone.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Don’t ask. You really don’t want to know, okay?”

  “Not okay,” King said.

  “Whatever.” The orderly began to drag King out of the van. King thumped around, trying to make it difficult for the orderly.

  Another thump on the head made King see spots.

  “You can walk,” Jerome said, “or I can give you another needle.”

  “Of what?” King wanted the orderly to talk. About anything.

  “Of whatever. It works, that’s all you need to know.”

  The utter lack of care in the orderly’s voice frightened King. This process of taking another
human in a cargo van, as if the human were cargo, was obviously just a job to the orderly.

  “Tell me one thing,” King said, “and I promise I won’t struggle. Who sent you?”

  The orderly succeeded in yanking King out of the van. King landed on his feet. With the tape securing his legs together so tightly that his ankles touched, he could barely keep his balance.

  The orderly spun King away from the van and stepped behind him. It gave King a clear view of where they were. In a parking lot at the base of a hiking trail. Not good. Definitely not good.

  “Don’t know who pays the bills,” Jerome said. “That’s a truthful answer. So you owe me to deliver on your promise. I really don’t want to carry you.”

  “Where?” King asked.

  Something dropped over his neck from behind. It felt cold. Seconds later, there was a jolt of tightness that seemed to fracture his Adam’s apple.

  “In case you can’t figure it out,” the orderly said, “that’s a choke chain. Works on dogs. It’ll work on you.”

  There was a slight ripping sound at his ankles. Behind him, the orderly must have squatted and cut the tape loose, because King could move his legs. He staggered slightly, keeping his balance as he spread his legs.

  “Now we walk,” Jerome said.

  King felt a jab in his back.

  “Yep,” Jerome said. “A knife. Don’t be stupid, okay? I’ve got a short grip on this choke chain and a tight grip on my knife. The only place you’re going is where I want you to go.”

  That’s when a cell phone rang.

  CHAPTER 45

  “Yeah,” Jerome said into the phone.

  A pause.

  “Yeah,” Jerome said again. “We’re here.”

  Another pause.

  Then Jerome said to King, “It’s for you.”

  King was hoping Jerome would cut the tape on King’s wrists so King could hold the phone.

  Nope.

  “I’ve got Blake’s computer.” A robotic voice reached King from the back of his skull. He realized that Jerome had put the cell on speaker mode and was holding it right behind King at head level. The robotic voice was some kind of computer-simulation that made it impossible to recognize. “Had it at dawn long before you called from the hospital. All it took was bloodhounds and a metal detector. Just wanted you to know that your bluff didn’t work. You have nothing. Understand? Nothing. That’s why you’re headed into the mountains. Everyone knows you wanted off the island. When you don’t come back, you’ll be a runaway who just disappeared. Like tens of thousands of others every year.”