by Fox, Stephen
“What’s wrong?” For the first time she allowed some fear to creep into her voice.
Underwood whispered back, “The door’s stuck. He must have found some way to jam it.” Time after time he heaved with all his might at the door.
Finally he gave up, and they went up to the next floor. The door opened easily. Together they rushed down the hall to the other set of stairs leading to the lobby and hurried down the stairs to the ground floor. Again the stairwell door refused to open.
Underwood shook his head. “He’s playing with us, like a cat with a mouse. We can move around the maze, but we can’t get out.”
“What’ll we do, Jim?”
“We need something to use as a weapon. What’s in the labs on this floor?” He steered her toward the first lab as he spoke.
“Why, these are our physical science labs. We do tests on non-explosive weapons and other items involved in crimes.” She opened the door and entered the room. “Unfortunately, that means that we don’t have any guns or bombs. All we have is knives and hammers and junk like that that people have killed each other with. Nothing that will stop one of these guys, let alone two.”
He shrugged. “We’ll have to make do.” He looked around. “Let’s see what we have here.”
The assassin stepped off the elevator, pulled a wedge out of his pocket and shoved it into the gap between the elevator and the floor, preventing the doors from closing. He walked down the hall, looking in offices and labs as he went, enjoying the thrill of giving his prey time to squirm. Sauntering around the corner, he spotted the mayor’s body. The vampire walked up to it and shook his head, chuckling at the mess that the presiding mayor of the city of Savannah found himself in. There were a lot of taxpayers out there who would be dancing in the streets to see this. He stifled a giggle as he reached down, pulled the stake out of the man’s chest and sat down to wait.
The lab was set up with countered cabinets lining both sides of the room with three lab tables like islands in the center, one in the middle and one near each end. Underwood started opening drawers, inventorying the contents. The drawers of one table contained pulleys and ropes, weights and scales and rulers. Another table contained beakers and glass bottles of every description. The last contained lab tools, from nearly microscopic tweezers and clamps to scalpels and forceps. Cabinets on one side of the room contained various chemicals and compounds needed to perform the myriad tests necessary to prove or disprove foul play. Drawers in the cabinets on the other side were filled with tools - hammers, screwdrivers, saws and wrenches of every size and shape imaginable.
On the counters above the cabinets were a dozen of the finest microscopes, next to electronic scales that could measure items to a thousandth of an ounce and a pair of spectroscopes used to identify the chemical composition of samples. All in all an impressive array of equipment, but hardly lethal. Scouring the room, Underwood found a few sharp objects like small saws and scalpels, but nothing that could prove to be an effective weapon against the Chosen.
He picked up a roller skate. “What’s this?”
She looked over his shoulder. “Evidence from the Gilliam case. Remember? Morales claimed he was nowhere near the beach when Gilliam was stabbed. We found grains of sand behind the wheels of Morales’ skate that contained plankton from red tide. That tide had just come in. He could only have got it the night of the murder.”
Underwood nodded. “Great work.” He continued his search for a weapon.
After a short time, Roukasis stirred. He opened his eyes and spied his partner sitting next to him waiting, smiled and exclaimed, “I’m baaack!” The second assassin returned his grin and asked, “Are you ready to kick some ass?”
“Why are there two kinds of refrigerators in here?” Underwood had moved to the far end of the lab.
“Oh, the black one there is a super freezer. We keep samples at minus 120 degrees Fahrenheit. We also keep a supply of dry ice in there.”
“Dry ice?” Underwood thought back to his high school chemistry class. “Isn’t that the stuff that goes from solid and evaporates straight to a gas?”
Marie nodded. “Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide. When dry ice warms to a temperature of 108 degrees below zero it does not melt - it changes to a gas and dissipates. Scientists refer to this as sublimation.”
Underwood’s finger began circling on the table as an idea began to form. “Does it completely disappear when it reaches that temperature, or is it a gradual change?”
Marie shrugged. “As dry ice is exposed to normal temperatures, it gets smaller and smaller as it gradually evaporates.”
For a full two minutes Underwood stood there. Marie waited, not wanting to break his train of thought. Finally he looked up as a smile flitted across his face. “Well then, can you give me a hand over here? I’m gonna be Mickey Rooney and you can be Judy Garland and we’re gonna put on a show.”
Chapter 12
Mayor Roukasis and the other assassin walked to the elevator, and rode it down to the first floor. After jamming the elevator door and checking that the door to the lobby was secure they began a systematic search of the first floor wing. They were in no hurry. Their victims were trapped in a maze of their making and there was no way out. The more they tried to escape the more panicked they would become, and the more fun it would be.
Underwood started pulling things out of the drawers. “We’ve got to move fast. Here, you fill these beakers with gasoline, while I set up the pulleys.”
“Where am I supposed to find gasoline?”
“I don’t know. Find something flammable. Don’t you scientist people use alcohol lamps or something?” Underwood was standing on one of the tables securing a pulley in the ceiling. When that one was done he moved over ten feet and attached another. The man fastened such devices into the ceiling, making a line from the door to the far table. Another pulley was fastened to the table. While Marie was stringing twine through the pulleys, he brought a large block of dry ice out of the freezer, using thick insulated gloves. Putting the block on one side of a metal tray at the first table, he balanced it with a group of empty glass beakers on the other side. Then he poised the tray with the glass beakers end hanging off the table, supported only by the weight of the dry ice. As the dry ice evaporated, the weight would diminish and the tray would fall to the floor along with all the glass beakers.
“What now?” Marie had strung the twine from the pulley near the top of the door to the second pulley on the back table.
“Find a way to attach that end to the door, while I rig this side.” He picked up the roller skate. “May I borrow this?”
The two men finished checking out the last of the offices on the first floor. Walking slowly back down the hall, they headed for the elevator and got in.
The apparatus was finished, the trap had been set. Underwood grabbed Marie’s hand and pulled her toward the door. “Oh, just one minute. I almost forgot one last thing.” He walked around the tables to each gas outlet, turning each outlet valve on. “Now we can leave.” They moved quickly down the corridor toward the next lab leaving a faint hiss in the air.
The door of the elevator opened and the two men exited, moving toward the south end of the floor to begin their sweep. The assassin stopped after a few steps. “Wait a minute.” He returned to the elevator and shoved the wedge in place. The search continued.
“Quick, get in here.” He motioned toward a small cabinet in the table at the far end of the lab. He wanted as much distance as possible from the other lab.
They were speaking softly, remembering the heightened senses of the Chosen.
“I can’t get in there! It’s too small. I”m claustrophobic.”
“I’ll help you. But hurry. We’re running out of time.” Underwood helped her to slither into the small cabinet. “Now scrunch up real tight, because I’m coming in too.” Over her objections, he managed to squeeze his bulky frame into the small compartment, virtually on top of her.
“Oof
, are we comfy yet? This isn’t going to work.”
“It better work, or we’re dead. Here, let’s shift over this way.”
“Ouch, get your elbow off my boob.”
“Well get your boob off my elbow. And shut up. Those guys will be here any minute.”
All the rooms on the south wing had been checked. The two assassins returned to the elevator and turned into the north wing of the floor. Roukasis pointed at the corner. A greasy handprint stained the wall. He grinned viciously. “Gotcha!” They started down the hall.
The first door opened into a small office. From the desk, it was apparently designed for a secretary who did little more than screen calls and schedule appointments. No filing cabinets or other record keeping devices other than the computer on her desk could be seen.
On the other side of the hall was the records room. Filled to overflowing with files, it also contained two microfiche machines and several boxes of slides. There was nowhere in this room to hide anything larger than a soda bottle.
The next door on the right opened into a lab, with another door at the far end of the room. The unnamed assassin reached for the first door. The knob refused to turn. Underwood had locked this door as they had left through it. Two offices on the other side of the hall proved empty. The two stalkers moved toward the far door to the lab, which was ajar.
Just as Roukasis reached to push the door open, a faint sound came from down the hall - a sneeze. The dust in the small cabinet had tickled Marie’s nose. A second sneeze cleared the offending particles but the damage was done. The assassins moved toward the door of the other lab and opened it.
A resounding racket erupted from the first lab, as the dry ice grew too light to hold the weight, and the glassware and metal tray went crashing to the floor. The men looked at each other in confusion. Roukasis whispered, “They must have split up. Bell is in this room and Underwood must be in that one.”
His partner nodded. “Forget the girl. Underwood is the one we need to finish.” They moved back to the first lab and positioned themselves on each side of the door. The assassin spoke softly to Roukasis. “You stay here in the hall to keep her from escaping, but be ready to assist if I need it. If we can finish Underwood, she’ll be a pushover.” Roukasis nodded and the killer pushed the door open as he entered.
“What the hell?” The member of the Chosen had just time for that exclamation, as three beakers filled with alcohol dropped from the top of the door, in a variation of the old bucket-over-the-door gag that all boys tried at least once growing up. Two of the three beakers spilled over him, dousing him with the highly flammable liquid. His gaze moved upward and he was able to find the twine secured to the door and leading to the first of the pulleys. His mind, working faster than human, was able to follow the twine through the line of pulleys and, moving his gaze downward, followed the line down to the table through the pulley there, where it was tied to a roller skate setting on the table. As the door opened further, he watched with curiosity as the twine tightened and started pulling the skate along the table. Now he noticed the match tightly fastened into the laces of the skate. Just then his mind registered Roukasis speaking. “Do you smell gas?”
The Chosen watched in horrified silence for a split second more as the skate rolled next to a large match box, where the match touched against the abrasive side of the box. The last thing his mind registered was the match head flaring up as it rubbed against the box.
The resulting blast disintegrated the room. Roukasis was picked up and flattened against the wall across the hall. He stayed conscious long enough to see his accomplice engulfed in flames blindly stumbling back into the room just as the roof collapsed and debris came cascading down burying everything.
Kazuo Iowata was just pulling out of the Savannah airport. His cousin Oshima Fumiko had just arrived from Tokyo for a two-week visit and brought his fiance Siaru with him. Kazuo looked forward to showing his cousin and his friend the sights in his new homeland.
Kazuo and his visitors drove south on Dean Forrest Road toward Interstate 16, which would take them into the city. Oshima spoke up, “This area seems quite empty, Kazuo. Do the people here not use it?” Around Tokyo nearly all the land is used for one purpose or another to accommodate the 27,000,000 people who lived in the world’s largest city.
“No, cousin.” Kazuo was proud of his knowledge of the area. “Most of this area is swamp land and unused. The land would have to be drained and developed before they could use it. In this wasteland only alligators and snakes can be found.”
Suddenly the night lit up with fire as the SLIP building exploded. His night vision destroyed, Kazuo pulled the car toward the shoulder and cut the ignition just as the shock wave from the blast shook the car. The two men sat there wide-eyed, watching the cloud of smoke grow taller reaching for the stars. Just as it seemed to be ready to engulf everything it began to dissipate and disappeared as quickly as it had come.
They sat in the dark car for several minutes, waiting for their night vision to return. Finally Kazuo reached for the ignition key. It was then that his cousin spoke for the first time since the blast. His voice held a tremor as he said with awe, “America is indeed a dangerous country. But cousin, I feel I must ask. Which was that, an alligator or a snake?”
Underwood had to shove aside a pile of debris before he could ease himself out of the cabinet. The heavy cabinet had bounced and quivered through the blast, but was strong enough to hold up under the barrage of rubble. As he helped Marie extricate herself, he couldn’t help but notice that the eastern wall adjoining the neighboring lab was nonexistent. All but a few bricks in the corners of the wall were gone, along with virtually the entire lab next door. He stared at the mangled tops of the dogwood trees, and marveled at how quiet everything was. No birds or wind - just the soft crackle of the dying flames sprouting out of the rubble. Now he could catch the faint cry of the fire trucks as they sped to the scene, but they were still a long way off. He looked closely at Marie. “Are you all right?”
For the first time since he knew her, Marie was a mess. Her face was scratched and covered with soot. Her hair had changed from glossy black to dingy gray. But she grinned at him and answered. “I look like I’ve been living on the streets for years, and every bruise on my body is bruised, but I’ll live. And you?”
“The same. We’re going to have a hell of a time explaining this to the state department. You might be out of a job.”
She turned to look around, then turned back with awe in her eyes. “You didn’t tell me you were going to destroy the entire block.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
They looked around and then back at each other. Standing in what appeared to be a war zone, the crackling of flames all around them, they burst out laughing.
“As long as it’s over.” A short pause and she whispered, “It is over, isn’t it?”
Underwood looked grim. “I don’t know. These two won’t be bothering us again, but whether others will come to take their place remains to be seen. We’ll know in the next couple of days.”
He started leading her through the rubble toward the stairs. A lot of loose debris kept shifting, so they had to go slow, holding on to each other for support. They stopped across from the hole where the ill-fated lab used to be. The window side of the building no longer existed. The other three walls were virtually gone, as was most of the roof and a great deal of the floor. What little wood was left from the cabinets and the inner wall supports was ablaze
“Wow!” Marie looked in awe at the crater. “Remind me not to let you cook when we get married.”
Underwood looked at her and grinned. “Who says we’re going to get married? I thought we’d live in sin for forty or fifty years first. No sense rushing into anything.”
Cautiously they continued. But they had only taken three or four more steps when the hand reached out of the rubble and grabbed her by the ankle.
Marie screamed and tried to free herself as a burned, bloody f
igure rose out of the debris, shifting its grip to her arm. His right arm was gone, blown off by the explosion. His face was charred beyond recognition, and only the left eye was working. The voice, when it came, was raspy and hoarse, but recognizable. The monster before them was John Roukasis, Mayor of Savannah.
The figure smiled, leaving a white gap in the black ruin of what had once been a remarkably handsome face. “Underwood. You’ve put me through hell, but I still live. I can never die, but you sure as hell can.”
Underwood kicked him in the crotch.
The figure released Marie as he went down to his knees. The captain pulled Marie back away from the fire-ravaged creature. They moved back the way they had come, unable to get around the figure for now. Underwood searched for a weapon to use against the pain-maddened monstrosity. Suddenly he spotted the fire box on what was left of the wall. In the box hung a fire axe. Opening the box, he took out the axe, moved it behind his back, and waited.
The figure lifted his head and smiled once more through charred lips. “You can’t stop me that easy, Underwood. I’m suffering so much pain, my body has blocked most of it out. I’m beyond pain. But you aren’t.” The ruined figure seemed to be growing stronger with each step. He turned his head to look at the girl. “Maybe I should start with her. After all, we wouldn’t want it to end too soon for you. You need to suffer for a while to repay you for all the problems you’ve caused me.”
The mayor took one step toward the girl. That’s when Underwood brought up the axe and sent it crashing down toward the figure. The mayor’s eyes opened wide as he raised his one arm to block it. The axe handle smashed into the arm, deflecting the blade but snapping the arm like a toothpick and knocking the man to the ground. Underwood’s arm went numb from the impact and he slipped to his knees. The mayor scrambled to get back on his feet, but one arm was missing and the other useless. Slowly Underwood regained feeling in his arms as the figure struggled helplessly. The captain labored to his feet. He raised the blade once more.