by Richard Bard
He steadied himself, lifting his head to stare at the two men in front of him. His family thought he was dead, his friends thought he was dead, and in less than a few months, he really would be dead. These guys had destroyed his home and his family, and they had stolen what little time he had left in the world.
Jake buried his despair beneath an angry resolve that gripped him far more tightly than the leather cinched around his limbs. He didn’t know how yet, but he was going to make them pay. Dearly.
With his eyes closed, Jake reflected on what he had learned from POW training camp. Stay calm. Feign cooperation. Find an escape within your mind when the pain becomes unbearable. Be patient. Wait for the right opportunity.
“Mr. Bronson, or I suppose I should call you Jake now that we’ve become acquainted, it’s time for the next stage of your examination.” Battista’s smile was Machiavellian. “I’m particularly interested in the amazing reflexes you exhibited in your neighborhood bar.”
With a knowing glance at Carlo, Battista added, “I’ll leave you in the capable hands of my associate. And knowing his methods, I do suggest that you cooperate, if only for your own sake.” He hesitated before leaving. “This is a soundproof room. Shout if you like. No one will hear you.” He gave a short bow and left the room.
Carlo didn’t get up from his chair right away. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag, his eyes relaxed with the influx of nicotine. He placed the cigarette within the small indentation of a square crystal ashtray on the table next to him. Reaching into the pocket of his pants, he pulled out a sleek titanium knife handle, slowly turning it over in his hand, caressing its ridged grip. A slight movement of his thumb and a wicked five-inch blade snapped into place.
With a speed that was startling, he flicked his wrist and flung the blade at Jake’s face.
The knife turned end over end, a black shadow streaking toward Jake’s face.
Jake tucked his head and felt the brush of the blade whisk through the crown of his hair. It embedded itself deep in the table with a solid thunk.
With a satisfied grunt, Carlo unbuttoned the long sleeves of his shirt, rolling each of them up to his elbows to reveal thick forearms covered with a random zigzag pattern of scars. By the looks of it, this guy had been in more than a few knife fights. Carlo rubbed his arms against each other as if they itched. He moved to stand directly in front of Jake, his empty eyes searching, so close that Jake could smell the lingering odor of onions on his breath. He reached over and turned the camera off.
Without warning, Carlo whipped a vicious backhand across Jake’s face, the force of the blow twisting Jake’s head violently to one side. “Any smart remarks, Mr. Bronson?”
Jake tasted blood on his lips. He had barely opened his mouth to respond when another backhand flew from the opposite direction. Carlo’s ring cut into his right cheekbone, and he felt a tiny rivulet of blood running down his cheek. Carlo put the weight of his thick shoulders behind a follow-up blow to Jake’s solar plexus. Jake gasped for breath. His body instinctively tried to double over, but the restraints held him tight.
Standing back to measure his work, Carlo said, “You don’t seem so fast to me. Certainly with your remarkable brain, you saw that coming, yes?”
Jake’s head buzzed. The helplessness of his situation was overwhelming. To survive this ordeal he had to ignore the pain, to draw within himself, to leave his body behind. Heaving for breath, he stared through moist eyes at the still-burning cigarette in the far corner of the room.
Carlo’s next strike went deep into Jake’s side. He groaned against the pain, but he kept his attention focused on the thin trail of smoke snaking into the air.
In that instant of pure concentration, while the pain signals from the blow were still traveling to Jake’s brain, something happened. He felt a tingling sensation behind his forehead, and the smoke from the cigarette scattered as if a blast of wind had rushed past it. The glass ashtray twisted a quarter-turn.
Jake questioned what his eyes had just seen. Had his thoughts actually moved an object from across the room? Carlo hit him again, but the pain belonged to someone else. Jake kept his mind on the ashtray, pushing at it, consciously trying to make it move again. The tingling sensation in his forehead returned, and the ashtray slid off the table and clattered to the tiled floor. Amazingly, the thick Italian crystal didn’t shatter.
Carlo stopped midswing and looked back at the ashtray lying upside down on the floor, the burning cigarette rolling to a stop nearby. He glanced quickly back at Jake, confused. He moved across the room and replaced the ashtray on the table. Then he picked up the smoking cigarette, appraising Jake with his black eyes while he took a hit, and let the smoke linger in his open mouth before drawing it into his lungs. He crushed the butt into the crystal with a smoke-stained finger.
When he returned, he yanked the knife out of the table over Jake’s head, holding the blade in front of Jake’s face, slowly moving it in front of one eye and then the other, the tip only a flinch away from blinding Jake forever. It was a symmetrical, tactical fighting knife; its twin stainless steel edges shimmered in stark contrast to the black-anodized meat of the blade. The edges appeared scalpel-sharp.
Jake held his breath.
“Our next off-camera session will include the knife,” Carlo said. “You can avoid it by cooperating. It’s entirely up to you.” With a sneer he added, “I hope you resist.” He flicked a button on the knife and the blade retracted with a click. Pocketing it, he reached over and switched on the camera.
“Okay, Mr. Bronson, we’re ready to begin your first test.” Surprisingly, he unbuckled the restraint from Jake’s right hand.
Jake raised his hand and rubbed his sore jaw. But his mind was elsewhere. He was still trying to digest what he had done with the ashtray. Telekinesis, the power to move objects with your mind—he’d read about it in the library. It didn’t seem possible, but he’d done it.
Looking back at the ashtray, he focused his thoughts again, imagining them as a physical thing, willing the ashtray to move once again, just slightly. The tingling sensation returned, and the ashtray slid backward an inch.
Unbelievable.
His remodeled brain would be his ticket out of here.
“We’ll start with the easy stuff,” Carlo said. “I’m going to take a swing at you, and I want you to stop me with your free hand. Trust me when I say that this will hurt if you don’t block me in time. Are you ready?”
Jake braced himself. He wasn’t going to get hit again.
Carlo started with another backhand to Jake’s right cheek. Jake brought his hand up, barely in time to block the strike. Nothing superhuman.
Another swing came back at Jake from the other direction. Jake blocked it again.
Walking over to the other side of the room, Carlo picked up the ashtray, his back to Jake. Then, like a shortstop throwing to first base, he hurled it.
Time slowed just as it had at Sammy’s. The heavy crystal headed straight for Jake’s face. Jake knew instantly that he could grab it right out of the air. But he resisted, not wanting the electrodes attached to his head to record the full extent of his physical abilities. He had to fight his body’s response, forcing his arm to remain still.
This is going to hurt.
It appeared as though one of the sharp corners of the ashtray was going hit first, close to his right eye. Jake focused his mind on the spinning projectile, willing it to change its rotation and direction.
The ashtray shifted midflight, just enough so that it only grazed Jake’s cheekbone. It hit the table and crashed to the floor, this time shattering from the impact. Carlo cocked his head, an angry expression on his face, as though he had noticed something odd. He reached into his pocket that held the knife.
Time’s up.
Jake focused on Carlo’s forehead. In his mind’s eye he imagined the spongy swirls of the man’s brain.
He squeezed.
Carlo staggered, his hand forgettin
g the knife as he reached up and massaged his temples. He blinked several times, obviously uncomfortable. He shook his head as if to clear it.
Jake squeezed harder, the effort taking a toll. He sensed that there was a limit to what he could do. But Carlo was still on his feet. Jake gathered the last bit of his remaining energy and imagined squeezing every drop of fluid out of Carlo’s sadistic brain.
Carlo fell back against the wall, his face twisted in agony. He slid to the floor, managing to snag his fingers on a wall-mounted alarm button on the way down.
A siren sounded.
Jake sagged onto the table, spent.
Chapter 16
Venice, Italy
THE DOOR FLEW OPEN. Two guards rushed in. Their pistols panned the room. Jake watched through lidded eyes, sagging against the vertical exam table, hoping they wouldn’t notice that his right hand was no longer secured. Carlo groaned on the floor, his back to the wall, his palms pressed against his forehead as if to prevent his head from exploding.
The guards holstered their weapons and bent over to help their boss.
As soon as their backs were turned, Jake unbuckled the strap securing his left hand. Then he quickly laid both his hands back into the open leather restraints, curling the ends around each wrist to make it look as though they were still secured.
With the guards’ help, Carlo was back on his feet.
Jake relaxed his eyes to narrow slits. His mental attack on Carlo had worked, but the effort had exhausted him. He was still a long way from being out of this mess. He dared not move. He needed them to think he was barely conscious, not a threat.
Carlo elbowed the guards out of his way. His hands pressed against his temples. He looked over at Jake’s slumped form, hatred burning on his contorted face. “Inject him and take him back to the dorm,” he growled, and then he staggered out of the room.
The guards’ tension vanished as soon as the door was closed. Both of them looked Middle Eastern, one with a hawk nose and close-set beady eyes, the other with hollow cheeks that were riddled with deep pockmarks. They weren’t big men, and they’d both moved with a rangy swiftness when they first entered the room. Hawk Nose went to a cabinet over the sink and pulled out a plastic-wrapped hypodermic syringe and a small vial of serum. His partner stood directly in front of Jake, the rubber soles of his boots crunching the broken glass from the shattered ashtray.
Jake had to think fast. Whatever he did, it had to happen before they drugged him into a stupor again. These guys were pros, and Jake was just, well, Jake. He needed an advantage and knew instinctively that he didn’t have the energy left for another massive mental attack. He rolled his head to the side and groaned. Through slit eyes that made him look drunk, he scanned the room and tried to come up with a plan.
His gaze lingered on the light switch by the door.
Hawk Nose squirted a small amount of the amber liquid into the air, eliminating any bubbles from the long needle. He moved over to Jake’s left side and grabbed the rubber injection link in the thin plastic IV that led into Jake’s arm. The other guard still hovered in front of him.
Jake blinked his eyes like the shutter of a camera, etching the exact positions of the guards and the syringe in his mind. Then he flung what little mental energy he had left at the light switch and flipped it down. The windowless room was thrown into total darkness. Spurred by a surge of adrenaline, he drew his right hand up across his body and grabbed the hypodermic from the startled guard. He swung it back around and hammered it into the muscular thigh of the guy in front of him, plunging its numbing liquid into his system. The guard grunted in surprise and let out a long sigh as he crumpled to the floor.
Jake felt the pressure of the remaining guard’s hand against his shoulder as it attempted to hold him to the table. Jake flung his left hand up and around the guy’s neck, ignoring the searing stab of pain that shot into his elbow when the IV ripped out. He pulled the guard’s head down with his left arm while he drove the elbow of his right arm into the guard’s temple.
There was an audible crack as bone hit bone.
The guard slipped from his grasp and stumbled backward to the floor. Jake heard him shimmy away in the darkness, breathing heavily.
Ripping the probe wires from his scalp and chest, Jake bent over at the waist and worked frantically to unfasten the ankle buckles. His heart jumped when the heavy silence was ripped apart by three deafening shots from the guard’s weapon. Jake felt the force of the rounds as they thudded into the table where his chest had just been. Crouched low, he took a half-step forward, stopping abruptly when he felt the crush of broken glass under his bare foot.
Not daring to move, Jake held his position. Death was only one sound away: a creak of a tendon, a forced breath. In the stillness, the scent of burned gunpowder drifted past him.
Jake strained his eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of movement. But the darkness of the room was complete. He’d seen the muzzle flash from the guard’s gun so he knew where the man had been standing. But had he changed positions while Jake’s ears were still ringing from the gunshots? And what if the guard had seen Jake? Was he even now aiming the weapon at Jake’s head, preparing to squeeze the trigger?
Five seconds passed, then ten.
A waiting game.
Jake couldn’t risk taking a step without crunching the shards of glass beneath his feet and revealing his position. His first-ever gunfight and he was stuck like a fly to sticky paper with nothing but spit to shoot back with.
The drugged guard lay limp on the floor in front of him. The man had drawn a pistol earlier…
Praying that his aching joints didn’t pop to betray his position, Jake probed the darkness with his hands. His fingers brushed a pant leg, then he slid his hand up to the belt.
There it was: cold steel in a half holster.
His heart thumped in his ears like a heavy-metal drum solo. He gripped the holster with one hand and the serrated grip of the pistol with the other. With his muscles coiled to move fast if there was a reaction from the other side of the room, he inched the weapon out.
Its shape was familiar, an automatic.
Jake flicked the safety off, aiming the weapon where his gut said the other guard had to be. His hands trembled. He held his breath.
He would have to chamber a round to be certain there was one ready to go. The noise was going to be about as inconspicuous as the sound barrier being broken in a low-level pass over LA.
His choice was made for him when he heard movement to his left, near the door. The guard was going for the light switch.
Jake snapped the slide back and leaped to his right, squeezing off three rounds before his shoulder hit hard on the floor.
There was a strangled yelp and a metallic clatter that sounded like the guard’s pistol skittering across the floor.
Jake jumped to his feet, the weapon extended in his right hand as he rushed toward the door and flipped on the lights.
The guard lay sprawled on his back, his feet twitching. A crimson pool of blood expanded from under his back. There was a quarter-size hole in his chest, directly over his heart. His empty eyes stared at the ceiling. The other two bullets had missed entirely, burying themselves in the plaster wall. The remaining guard lay on his side at the foot of interrogation table, still knocked out from the drug.
Jake shuddered and collapsed to the floor. He dropped the pistol, vaguely recognizing it as a Russian-made Makarov. He pressed his palms to his eyes as if to make the vision of the man he had just killed disappear. A wave of nausea engulfed him.
This was not his world. He didn’t choose this. He’d been dragged into it, literally kicking and screaming. The cancer, the MRI accident, the changes to his brain, the kidnapping, torture, and now this.
After several moments, Jake pushed himself back to his feet. He took in the scene around him, his breathing shallow.
The dead guard’s face was pale, ghostly. At least it had been quick for the guy. Better than
a tumor eating away at you from the inside out, the constant pain and nausea unbearable, even through a fog of medication. He glanced down at the gun on the floor. Could he do it? Could he end it all right now, quick and easy with a single shot to his own temple?
A shiver tickled the back of his neck.
With a calm sense of detachment, Jake bent over and picked up the Makarov, lowered the still-cocked hammer, and ejected the magazine to find seven rounds pressed to the top, plus one still in the chamber. He slid the mag back in place.
Holding the pistol up to his face, he turned it slowly over in his fist, examining every curve and contour of its ingenious design. Creating and nurturing life was a complex process. Ending it was simple. He brought the side of the barrel up to his cheek, felt the steel alloy still warm from the exploding rounds, one of which had just killed a man. As if it had a mind of its own, the tip of barrel slid across his stubbled skin, up his sideburn to his temple.
Jake stood there, the gun pressed to his head, finger on the trigger.
His thoughts betrayed his intentions. Is death really this easy? What about those I’ll leave behind? What about the children upstairs, my mom, my friends?
Jake lowered the pistol to his side. My time’s coming soon enough, he thought, but not yet. He moved across the room and stood over the unconscious guard. The emptied syringe was still stuck to its hilt in the man’s thigh.
All right, boys, let’s do it your way. You’ve made it clear—it’s you or me.
Jake pointed the barrel at the guard’s forehead. His hand was steady.
But still he hesitated, watching the man’s chest rise and fall in his drug-induced slumber. A voice in his head held him back. Death isn’t simple…
With a sniff, he crouched down next to the guy’s ear and said, “You owe me, pal.”
***
Dressed in the unconscious guard’s shoes and clothes, the automatic snug in its holster under a blazer, Jake stepped out of the room into a long hallway. The twelve-foot-high, pale-yellow walls had likely been graced with beautiful tapestries and paintings hundreds of years ago, but now they were stripped bare. There were several large doorways stretching down both sides of the hall, each recessed within a dark walnut, arched encasement. Crystal sconces framed each doorway.