by Chris Jordan
“Oh my god,” Missy says, her voice piping with fear. “Look, it’s him. Oh my god, we’re all going to die.”
They both stare at the new presence on the monitor. A tall, rangy-looking guy in a hooded, fur-lined jacket. The way the security guards respond-they do everything but salute-it’s obvious he’s the boss.
“Kavashi,” Eldon says.
Then he wrestles me to the floor-stronger than he looks, the bastard-and slips a heavy plastic fastener around my wrists, pulling it tight. And when I tell him he’s scum of the earth, and I hope he really does die, the sooner the better, he slips a gag into my mouth.
Missy helps.
16. Scene Of The Crime
Shane lies on the floor of the holding cell, attempting to gather his thoughts. A full blast from a Taser doesn’t make you lose consciousness, it makes you wish you’d lost consciousness. Aside from anything else-the fear, for instance-the experience is totally humiliating, both physically and mentally. You go from being a strong, physically fit individual to a bag of twitching Jell-O in the time it takes to squeeze a trigger. Individuals deranged by drugs or psychosis were sometimes able to overcome a Taser attack, ripping out the darts, but a normal person is rendered totally helpless. On an intellectual level you’re aware that a Taser jolt is low-amperage, nonlethal, and that you’re not going to die. But on a physical level it feels exactly like death, a horrible, humiliating death where you lose all control of your dying body.
The only reason he didn’t wet his pants is because he’d used the toilet shortly before Kavashi arrived. Small favors. Of greater concern is the fact that he can’t seem to think straight. Did Kavashi blast him two times, or was it three? No, wait, it was the three trigger pulls, prolonging the experience. Something must have malfunctioned, because it lasted, much, much longer than the thirty seconds it usually takes for the battery to discharge. Or did it? Maybe his perception of time got all messed up. Is that possible? Did it scramble his brain? But-and this comes back to him in bits and pieces-according to the instructor at the Academy, a Taser doesn’t affect the brain directly, it subdues a perp by short-circuiting muscles and nerves, more or less locking the brain out of the process.
So why can’t he think straight? Did something go wrong, did the Taser short-circuit his mind, as well as his muscles? Can’t think, and physically he feels totally spent, as if he’s just run a marathon, or endured a flood of adrenaline, or both. Shaky, shaky. What he really wants to do is escape into sleep, let his brain recharge. If a Taser can recharge, why not his brain? Does that make sense? But he can’t let himself sleep because something bad is happening, only he can’t seem to remember what, exactly. Something Kavashi knows. Something that can hurt Haley Corbin.
Right. Kavashi knows who Shane is, and why he’s here. He knows Shane is looking for Haley Corbin and her little boy. He knows Shane has been asking about a Ruler named Eldon Barlow. And just before blasting Shane for the second time-or was it third?-he put it all together. Something in his eyes, a glint of triumph.
Stupid, stupid. You assumed Kavashi knew all about Mrs. Corbin, but he didn’t, not until you helped him find her.
Sit up, you stupid man. Think of something. Do some thing.
Without warning, the door to the cell opens.
Before Shane can stop himself he rolls under the bed, curls into a fetal position, wanting to hide from the Taser.
“Mr. Shane?”
Out of a bleary, bloodshot eye, he sees, not his tormentor Kavashi, but a strange little man. Something wrong with the man’s face, as if he’s been badly sculpted in kindergarten clay. Wearing black like a priest, but without the collar.
“Randall Shane? I’m Wendall Weems. I know where Mrs. Corbin is hiding. We’ve got to get you out of here, Mr. Shane. You’re her only hope.”
Something about the man’s manner and voice is strangely calming, and the tension leaves Shane. He’s still afraid of getting zapped with a Taser-physically terrified-but he’s able to pull himself together, drag his body shakily upright.
“Okay,” he says. “I’m great.”
He’s far from feeling great, but Weems leads him from the holding cell, and then he’s out in the cold clean air and suddenly his mind is clear and he knows what to do. More or less.
A few minutes later, as they load gear into a borrowed BK Security van-okay, stolen-Shane asks Weems how he managed to get inside the security station without being seen, let alone into the holding cells.
“I have my little secrets,” Weems says, handing Shane body armor and a police-issue tactical shotgun.
They’ve already loaded in the smoke canisters and the flash-bang stun grenades, borrowed-okay, stolen-from the BKS armory.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Of course,” the little man says. “That’s part of the plan.”
“So you do have a plan?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good,” says Shane. “Always helps to have a plan. Get in, fasten your seat belt.”
“Where are we going?” asks the little man. Although he already seems to have a pretty good idea.
“Scene of the crime,” says Shane.
“What crime?”
“The one that’s about to happen. That’s my plan.”
17. Men Like Big Scary Bugs
It’s weird. I’d been thinking of the cast-iron bathtub as a possible refuge and that’s where Eldon decides to stow me. Bound hand and foot with plastic ties and some sort of ball-rubber gag in my mouth, like a pacifier only much bigger. He slips me into the cool dry tub without ceremony. A moment later Missy lifts my head, provides me with a pillow.
“There you go,” she says, as if the pillow will make it all better. “I’m really sorry, but Eldon’s right, we can’t have you running away. What if we need to trade you? I mean, in a funny way you’re all we’ve got right now, okay?”
No, it is not okay. If looks could kill, Missy Barlow would be a smoking pool of melted protoplasm by now.
Leaving me helpless in the tub, they return to their master bedroom suite to watch the monitors and, from the sound of it, to bicker and whine like a couple of overbred whippets.
I told you so! No you didn’t! Shut up! No, you shut up!
F. Scott Fitzgerald-I read The Great Gatsby in eleventh grade and loved it; go Daisy!-had it partly right. The rich are different than you and me: if the Barlows are any example, they’re really, really stupid. If that’s what you get after years of improving your mind, I’m happy to remain unimproved. And relatively poor, just as a precaution.
After a couple of minutes obsessing on revenge-Missy Barlow hanging upside down with fire ants running down her skinny legs-I decide it makes more sense to concentrate all my energy on my present situation. My hands are behind my back, so there’s no way to gnaw on the plastic tie. No obvious sharp surfaces to rub my wrists against. And writhing my ankles just seems to make the bind tighten. More than anything I’d love to spit out the awful-tasting rubber gag, but it’s held in place with a strap that goes around the back of my head.
Come to think of it, what were they doing with an item like that, right at hand in their bedroom? The thought of some sort of sexual kink makes me really want to gag. Don’t go there, don’t even think about it. Breathe through your nose, remain calm.
Testing the limits of movement, I’m pretty sure I could flop myself out of the tub, but decide to wait. As I’d been thinking, the heavy cast iron may afford some protection if the bullets start flying. Happy thought. It conjures up a scene from an old classic movie Jed rented from Netflix, Bonnie and Clyde. The only actor I recognized was Gene Hackman, and he looked absurdly young. Like just about everyone else in the movie, he gets shot, but the worst is the end when the two knuckleheads, Bonnie and Clyde, get totally riddled with machine-gun fire. Just so you get the message, it’s in slow motion. By the time its over they look as though they’re made of bloody Swiss cheese, which is not a picture you want sticking in your mind when you’re
holed up in a shuttered house and the cops are outside loading shotguns and putting on vests and helmets.
So I’m in the tub thinking about stupid Bonnie and her stupid Clyde when Missy starts shrieking. “Oh my god, Eldon! Here they come!”
First, the power goes out and we’re plunged into darkness. Missy’s pathetic whimpering makes me almost feel sorry for her. Almost.
Next thing, the sounds of shrieking metal-the shutters being pried off-and then breaking glass, and men shouting, and the sting of something in the air, maybe tear gas. I can hear the Barlows coughing and wailing.
Then a window smashes in the guest bathroom, right over the tub. Something hits my legs, nearly stopping my heart. I can’t see, but it hisses madly-a canister of noxious gas-and suddenly my eyes are tearing and I’m choking around the gag.
Coughing, coughing. Can’t breathe.
I manage to roll out of the tub and lay gasping, facedown on the cool tile floor. Whatever the gas or smoke is, it scalds my sinuses, induces fits of convulsive coughing. I’m desperate to get the damn gag out of my mouth-can’t breathe! can’t breathe!-but nothing works, and then I’m out of control, convulsing, as if my body is trying to vomit out the intrusive rubber gag in my mouth.
White pinpoints of light in my eyes-am I passing out from lack of oxygen?-and the lights become powerful flashlights. Muffled shouting, “Got her! Got her!” I can see just enough to recognize dark uniforms, men looking like big, scary bugs with their glistening gas masks, and then they’re carrying me out of the bath, into the smoke-filled bedroom, and down the grand staircase.
The air improves as we descend, although my eyes still sting, my throat and nose continue to burn. I kick and writhe-take the gag out of my mouth, you bastards!-but they’ve got me and I can’t get away.
The power comes back on and through my tears I see the Barlows facedown on the foyer floor, bound hand and foot with plastic ties, just as they had bound me. They’re crying and begging for mercy-We didn’t know! We didn’t know!-and then the handsome, hawk-nosed man with the mustache looms in, checking me out, and for the first time I’m truly terrified, rather than merely frightened.
Something in his eyes. Cold, calculating, dismissive.
He jerks his chin. “Outside. Put in van.”
As if I’m a piece of noxious garbage to be dispensed with.
The men who carry me have slipped off their gas masks and somehow it’s shocking to see how young they look, how perfectly ordinary. There’s no particular animosity in their eyes-indeed, they avoid making eye contact with me, ignoring my muffled pleas to remove the awful, choking gag-but no connection, either. I’m a task to be accomplished, a bundle delivered, but I’m not making it easy for them.
We’re at the front door when the sun explodes.
Night, I’m thinking. Can’t be any sun.
A concussive blast follows the hot, white flash, com pressing my lungs, squeezing out the air. People are screaming, shouting. I’m completely blind, the flash still burning deep behind my eyes. Has the house exploded? Am I dying? Already dead?
More than anything I want to scream, but can’t.
I’m on my back in the doorway, completely blind, writhing for air. Then strong arms lift me up, cradling me like an infant, and fingers gently pry the gag from my mouth, holding me as I suck in the cold air of night-we’re outside now, how did that happen-and I hear his deep and gentle voice saying, “I gotcha, Mrs. Corbin.”
Then he flips me up onto his big shoulders and runs away from the shouting, into the night.
Shane.
He doesn’t run far, less than a hundred yards, I’m guessing, but by the time he puts me down I can see again, although dimly. We’re on frozen, windswept ground, next to a metal shed or structure. The Barlow place is some distance down the mountain from where we’re crouched. It looks to be almost completely consumed by black smoke. Uniformed men run in and out of the smoke looking panicked, though somehow furtive.
“A flash-bang grenade, a few smoke bombs,” Shane explains as he clips away the plastic ties, freeing my arms and legs.
Behind me the shed door opens and a familiar voice says, “Quickly! We don’t have much time!”
Ruler Weems, urging us inside.
Shane helps me stand-my feet are still numb from the binding-and hobble into the deeper darkness of the little shed. Barely room enough for the three of us to stand, and so dark I can’t see my hands in front of my face.
Weems clicks on a powerful flashlight, aims it at the concrete floor. “Keep your hands at your sides. This is a transformer station. Touch the wrong thing and you’ll die instantly.”
Following his instructions we press our backs to the metal wall, inching along until he tells us to stop. Person ally I wouldn’t trust the little man to guide me across the street. I’m following Shane, who came and got me, just as he promised.
Weems crouches, fiddles with something on the floor. It makes a faint hydraulic sound, the sigh of pressure released, and then a portion of the concrete floor lifts, bathing our legs in a greenish light.
Beneath, steel rungs go down into an illuminated shaft.
“We must hurry,” Weems says.
“You think Kavashi knows about the tunnel?” Shane wants to know.
“He’ll figure it out eventually,” Weems says. “Right now I’m worried about the boy. What they’ll do to him when they realize we’ve escaped. Let’s go! Ladies first.”
I drop into the tunnel. Praying it will lead me to Noah.
Part V. The Pinnacle
1. Something About The Boy
As it turns out, torture isn’t necessary. Or not much of it. The Barlows have seen the error of their ways and are eager to cooperate. If Vash understands them correctly, and the whimpering makes it difficult, their defense is that Ruler Weems made them do it. They’re clueless about Randall Shane, or how he happened to escape from a locked holding cell, and have no idea where he might have taken Haley Corbin. All the Barlows know for sure is that whatever happened, it isn’t their fault, and to make up for it they’d like to become part of Eva’s faction, please. Pretty please with millions on top.
“Not my decision,” Vash had informed them. “Maybe Evangeline forgive you, maybe not.”
That had provoked much weeping and whining. Vash has a low tolerance for whiners-there’s something about a pleading voice that sets his teeth on edge. Had it been entirely up to him, the Barlows would have perished in their own home, victims of an unfortunate fire. Not as punishment, but because he finds them to be as irritating as they are untrustworthy. As it is, their fate remains undetermined-Eva has too much on her mind, and seems eager to blame Vash for not having the godlike powers to know everything and be everywhere at once.
“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” she says with her acid tongue. “You had him and you let him get away? This so-called nobody, this supposedly harmless man who used to be with the FBI? And then the harmless nobody steals one of your tactical vans, waits until your men retrieve the woman from the house, then steals her away and they both vanish in a puff of smoke. Is that about right?”
“Somebody help him, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
When Evangeline gets like this, frustrated because things haven’t gone her way, she looks as if the only thing that would make her feel better is the opportunity to kill someone with her own hands. Vash would be sympathetic-when he was slightly younger he often indulged in such excessive reactions-except that in this instance he’s the someone Eva would like to kill. Something to keep in mind, when it comes to long-term survival strategies.
“Any idea who helped him?” she asks sweetly.
“We review the video. Takes two hours, maybe three. Many cameras, much data.”
Eva the Diva gets up close and personal, bumping her hips into his pelvis, and not in a friendly way. More like the sexual aggression of a praying mantis, eager to be off with his head. “You don’t need to find it on the cameras, dar
ling. We both know who it was.”
Vash shrugs. “Could be Weems, yes. Is possible. Or maybe he bribes one of my men.”
“Trust me, Wendy did it. And you know how I know? Because I was watching. You can’t be bothered, apparently, so I’ve been keeping an eye on Mr. Ugly. And guess what, he wasn’t at home. Again. So I guess he must have borrowed that invisibility cloak from Harry Potter, huh? The one that lets him come and go without being seen?”
“Who is this Harry Potter?”
“Don’t be dense, darling.” She hooks her fingers in his belt, tugs him even closer. “The point is, we can’t control Wendy if we don’t know where he is. Silly me, I thought I stressed that. I thought I made it clear. But apparently you don’t think it’s important to keep my most dangerous rival under surveillance. My blood enemy. The wretched little man who would happily dance on my grave, given the chance. No, you let him come and go as he pleases.”
“I have men looking at blueprints. He must have hidden exit from Bunker.”
“How is it possible that you wouldn’t know about it?”
“No one can know what they don’t know. This is point. Okay? Maybe he makes modification in Bunker before I take over security. Some way to get out of Bunker without being seen. Yes, that’s what I believe. He comes, he goes, we can’t see.”
Vash is fairly certain he knows where Weems’s secret exit terminates-inside a bathroom, out of camera range-but decides not to share until he’s certain, and has a plan to deal with it. Eva’s inclination is to go in with guns blazing, but Vash is keenly aware that the Bunker is well fortified and that Ruler Weems will have a plan of defense. Plus, with a former FBI Special Agent on the loose, now is the time for caution.