The Devil's Hand

by Carr, Jack

  Understanding the strength of his attacker, Ali redirected his movement, and instead of pulling away he turned back toward Reece with the screwdriver. The sudden change in direction freed Reece’s foot, which he yanked back out of the hole, the leg of his suit melting into his flesh.

  Both men scrambled to their feet, struggling to breathe in the heat of their suits, Reece positioned between the man and all exits from the burning building.

  When backed into a corner, animals will either run or fight. Ali had nowhere to run. With astonishing speed, the screwdriver slashed for Reece’s neck. Blocking it with both hands, Reece quickly reached over Ali’s bicep, grabbing his forearm and putting him in a figure-four arm lock, controlling the weapon and torquing his shoulder to the outside of his body. Reece stepped into his attacker, throwing his right foot around the back of his opponent’s leg, sweeping him to the ground. The small oxygen bottle strapped to Ali’s back sent a debilitating nerve pain through his spine when he hit the floor. Reece followed him down, landing on top of him with a knee on his stomach. Still controlling the arm with the screwdriver, Reece switched knees, redirecting Ali’s energy and stabbing the screwdriver into the terrorist’s thigh. Even through the suit Reece could hear Ali scream in agony. Transitioning to his other knee, Reece improved his position and drove a palm strike into the back of the tool, imbedding it even deeper into the muscles of Ali’s leg. Writhing in pain, Ali reached up and frantically grabbed at Reece’s mask. Reece parried the first hand and landed a palm strike to the face, the pressurized suit once again absorbing much of the hit.

  Thrashing in a primal fight for life, Ali grabbed Reece’s mask with two hands.

  Virus. Smoke. Death.

  Panic.

  Regain control, Reece.

  Reece trapped Ali’s hands to his own mask to prevent him from pulling it off. Vision obscured by his enemy’s fingers and palms, Reece’s free hand went back to the screwdriver still embedded in Ali’s leg. Pulling the tool from Ali’s thigh, Reece surgically indexed Ali’s top hand with its side, slowly inserting the flathead between the metacarpal bones of Ali’s hand, careful not to punch it through his own mask.

  Feeling the side of the screwdriver pressing though his gloved hand, Ali let go of Reece’s mask and snatched his hand back to cover his face. Too late. Reece pinned Ali’s arm under his knee, indexed the back edge of the tool on Ali’s forearm, and filleted his arm to his biceps, pressing it deep into his shoulder socket.

  Jerking the tool up to Ali’s elbow, he used his left hand to control the wrist, forcing the man to roll over onto his stomach. With his knee firmly planted on Ali’s back, Reece retracted the screwdriver and dug it into the Ali’s other elbow, using the leverage to pull the arm out and behind the back.

  Fuck! I need some handcuffs.

  Detecting a moment of hesitation, Ali exploded out of the submission with an animalistic scream, knocking Reece off balance and shooting in on him from the floor. Still on his knees, Reece sprawled, snaking his right arm across his opponent’s throat, latching on to his left biceps in an anaconda choke. Reece flattened the man out and rolled toward his left side, using the hallway wall to walk his hips into the attacker, tightening the choke.

  Seconds later, Reece felt Ali’s last flutter of resistance as he went limp.

  Starved for oxygen through a filter not designed for smoke inhalation, Reece peeled himself away from Ali’s unconscious body. Feeling lightheaded from the smoke and heat, Reece looked back down the hall toward the body by the front door. Not trusting how long the blood-deprived brain of his opponent would stay shut off from the world, Reece grabbed Ali’s right arm, feeling it pull from its socket, and dragged him down the smoke-filled hallway. Reece knelt by the downed police officer and checked for a pulse. Nothing. He then reached around to the back of his belt for his handcuffs.

  It was only after he cuffed both of the terrorist’s hands behind his back that he noticed the bright red arterial blood spraying from Ali’s femoral artery.

  CHAPTER 55

  NOT KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT to do when she saw the house start to go up in flames, Haley had called 9-1-1 to report a fire.

  She breathed an audible sigh when the door flew open and she saw Reece rush outside. He had a man in a bio-containment suit on his shoulders.

  “Shit!” she said, hitting the start button and putting the large vehicle in drive.

  Reece stopped at the base of the driveway, looked to Haley approaching in the black SUV, and continued across the street to get away from the heat of the growing inferno. He dropped the man unceremoniously to the ground as Haley screeched to a halt, blocking a neighbor’s driveway with the Suburban.

  “Oh my God! Reece, are you okay?” she asked, exiting the vehicle and taking in his injuries.

  Reece ripped the mask from his face and sucked in the cool Colorado air. He put his hands on his knees to steady himself and then straightened back up, looking from Haley to the still-unconscious form at his feet.

  “I’ll live. I think,” Reece said, rolling his shoulder from where the screwdriver had impacted and looking down at the burns on his left leg.

  “Get me out of this thing,” he demanded, pawing at the neck seal on his suit.

  “Here, let me,” Haley said, helping him remove what was left of his protective equipment.

  With the suit off, Reece was able to access the Northman blade in his pocket. He knelt and cut the plastic attached hood and face shield off the terrorist’s bio suit.

  “Do you have that phone?” Reece asked, holding out his hand.

  “Yes, right here,” Haley said, handing it to him. “I also called 9-1-1 when the house started to go up.”

  Reece glanced up and down the street. He could hear sirens in the distance. He saw neighbors now looking out at the fire from their windows and at the strangers in the street, still afraid to come outside because of the confusion surrounding the virus.

  “Good move,” Reece said, a plan forming in his mind.

  “He’s got an arterial bleed on his right leg. Apply pressure.”

  Haley took Reece’s hazmat suit and placed a portion of it over the terrorist’s wound, pushing down with both hands in an attempt to stem the flow of blood.

  “He’s not going to make it long if we don’t stop this,” she ob-served.

  “I know.”

  Reece took multiple photos of the man the Jeep in the driveway suggested was Ali Ansari and sent them to Vic via encrypted message along with the text: “Ali Ansari? Confirm.”

  “Where’s your gun?” Haley asked.

  “Melting inside.”

  The sirens were growing louder.

  “Haley, we need to get out of here and back to the airport. Whatever is in that house is gone. Ali here is our only link to the virus and he’s bleeding out.”

  Haley stared at the man before her: left pant leg shredded with what were obviously serious burns in need of attention, bloody shoulder, drenched in sweat. And possibly the only man who could prevent a disaster unprecedented in American history.

  “I’m in, Reece. Let’s stop this thing.”

  “Wait here.”

  Reece dashed back across the street to the Crown Victoria, holding up his arm in a vain attempt to block the heat of the burning home. He bent down, pulled a stone from the dirt- and weed-infested front lawn that bordered the driveway, and threw it through the driver’s-side window. He reached in, unlocked the door, and opened it. Quickly searching for the trunk release, he pulled it and ran to the rear of the vehicle. Among a few bottles of water, jumper cables, trauma bag, police windbreaker, and a black plate carrier with body armor was what Reece was looking for: a 12-gauge Remington 870. He pulled out the dependable old shotgun and pressed the action release. There was not a round in the chamber, so Reece flipped it over and checked to make sure the tube was loaded. He then grabbed the trauma kit and police windbreaker before running back across the street.

  “Here, put this on,” he said, tossin
g the windbreaker to Haley, who now had her knee on the wound.

  Reece’s phone buzzed.

  Confirmation: Ali Reza Ansari. BioDine executive. Entered U.S. one month ago. Swiss citizen. Originally from Iran.

  Reece shoved the phone in his pocket, then knelt and put the shotgun on the ground. He unzipped the trauma kit and pulled out a North American Rescue Combat Application Tourniquet.

  “The wound is too high. That might not do it,” Haley said. “We are going to need to clamp it.”

  An ambulance turned onto the street. Reece could hear additional sirens in the distance that he assumed were fire trucks.

  “Haley? Have you ever stolen an ambulance?”

  CHAPTER 56

  LUCKILY, THE AMBULANCE ARRIVED on scene before any other emergency vehicles. Haley had waved it down in her oversize police windbreaker.

  Reece showed the driver and paramedic his U.S. Marshal credentials and gave them a half-truth about needing to save the life of his “suspect.” He doubted the first responders would be understanding or supportive of what Reece was prepared to do to their patient to get the information he needed. Together, they loaded the man into the back of the ambulance, and as the fire trucks turned onto the street, Reece was glad he’d grabbed the shotgun. It helps to be armed when stealing a government vehicle.

  “Haley!” Reece yelled from the back of the ambulance, where he sat with Ali Ansari duct-taped to the gurney. “Can you get us to the interstate and back to the airport?”

  “I think so,” she said, speeding through the streets with sirens still on.

  “The police are too busy dealing with an insurrection to look for a stolen ambulance, but you never know.”

  “Yeah, on their list of priorities, I agree this is not at the top.”

  “We need to keep him alive long enough for me to ask him some questions.”

  “You know I’m a microbiologist, not a trauma surgeon, right?”

  “I know; turn off the sirens and park by the overpass up ahead. I’m going to need help with this. He doesn’t look good.”

  Reece cut Ali’s right bio-suit leg off with trauma shears as Haley pulled the ambulance to the side of the road under the overpass. She kept the vehicle running and joined Reece in back.

  “Okay,” she said, pulling on rubber gloves and assessing the wound, noting Reece had used the tape from the trauma kit to tie Ali’s hands and legs to the gurney.

  Blood pumped from the wound, covering Reece, Haley, the gurney, and the floor of the ambulance.

  “The vein runs under the adductor muscle and medial, and the nerve runs lateral exposing the artery,” she said to herself, thinking back to her time in the ER during rotations. “V-A-N: vein—artery—nerve. Medial to lateral, three inches below the inguinal ligament.”

  “What does that mean?” Reece asked, unable to control the urgency in his voice.

  “It means the tourniquet is not working. He’s going to be dead in minutes if not seconds.”

  “Shit! Let’s clamp it.”

  “Find the clamps and any IV bags. They are in here somewhere,” she said, turning to go through the drawers and cabinets be-hind her.

  Reece did the same, rummaging through the unfamiliar space on his side.

  Ali’s eyes fluttered open and he managed a weak moan.

  “Don’t you worry, Ali. We are going to save your life, but only so you can answer questions.”

  “Found the IV bags,” Haley said.

  “And I think these are the clamps,” Reece said, grabbing the longest tool from a drawer labeled HEMOSTAT.

  “Those will work,” Haley responded.

  She looked down at the wound, still spitting blood.

  “I can’t see or do anything through that hole. Just hold the pressure. It will take me a second to get this set up,” she said.

  Reece pushed back down on the wound with both hands, looking into Ali’s glassy eyes. He was on the verge of unconsciousness.

  “We have to stop this bleeding,” she said.

  Reece removed his hands from the terrorist’s leg, blood continuing to pump from the body.

  “Damn it,” Haley said. “I can’t see in there. The puncture wound is too small.”

  As she finished her sentence, Reece unsheathed his knife and stuck the tip in the hole, slicing up and then down Ali’s leg to enlarge the wound.

  Ali’s eyes opened wide and he gasped in pain.

  “Reece! What are you doing?” Haley shouted.

  “Now you can see. Clamp it,” he said, handing her the hemostat.

  Haley took a breath to clear her head.

  “Haley, this man is responsible for deaths of thousands and is the key to saving millions more. Clamp it.”

  Haley grabbed the hemostat from Reece and jabbed it into Ali’s leg, using her free hand to manipulate the wound to give her better access.

  Ali’s screams filled the interior of the ambulance.

  “Shit!” she said. “Probably clamped the nerve.”

  Haley repositioned herself and steadied her breathing.

  “Vein, artery, nerve,” she repeated, as she clamped down again, bringing the arterial pump to a stop.

  “Yes! Nice work!” Reece said.

  “He needs fluids, or we are going to lose him!”

  Haley pulled a bag of lactated Ringer’s solution from a drawer along with an 18-gauge IV needle, twisting his left arm, taped to the gurney, in an attempt to find a vein.

  “Did you have to tape him up? Hard to get a stick like this.”

  Reece slashed the tape with his fixed blade.

  “Better?”

  “Better,” Haley confirmed.

  “Just need the right angle,” she said, missing the sticks on her first three attempts.

  “Jesus, where did you go to medical school?”

  “Fuck you, Reece. His veins are collapsing. There is nothing to put it in. I can’t get a stick.”

  “What about the subclavian vein?” Reece asked.

  “And where did you go to medical school?”

  “I saw a PJ do it in Iraq. Saved my friend’s life.”

  “All right. I haven’t done one since my third year of med school, but let’s try.”

  Haley switched positions as Reece retaped Ali’s hand to the gurney. She assessed the patient’s upper chest and neck. Feeling her way around the clavicle, she placed her index finger in the sternal notch and her thumb at an angle to guide the needle.

  “Here goes,” she said, inserting it just below the clavicle and above the first rib. She was rewarded with an instant return of dark blood.

  Ali let out a groan.

  With a spurt of venous blood returning to the syringe, she hooked up the IV, wiped sweat from her forehead, and squeezed half the IV bag into the man on the gurney.

  Haley leaned back against the drawers in the cramped space of the ambulance. The three of them were covered in blood, but all were alive.

  “You drive. I’ll take it from here,” Reece said.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Whatever I have to.”

  CHAPTER 57

  ALI WATCHED, OBVIOUSLY STILL in intense pain, breathing labored as Reece read the labels on bottles from the narcotics locker. Haley drove in silence, concentrating on getting them to the private side of the airport and back to the CIA Gulfstream, putting up a mental barrier between herself and what was going on in the rear of the ambulance.

  “I know you,” Ali whispered.

  Reece turned his attention from the medical cabinet to the terrorist strapped to the gurney.

  “Yeah? I do tend to get around.”

  “I saw your car in Chicago. And I saw you in Atlanta. You should be dead.”

  Reece paused, considering his next move.

  “I know you, too, Dr. Ali Reza Ansari. BioDine. Originally from Iran.”

  “You know nothing,” Ali said, forcing a confident smile.

  “I have a few pieces, but I don’t kn
ow everything. You are going to fill in some blanks for me.”

  “It’s too late. I know you are not going to let me live. I am just an innocent Muslim targeted by the xenophobic American intelligence community, a victim of a systemically racist government.”

  “Yeah, well, the ministry of truth might be on your side. Unfortunately for you, I found a bottle of succinylcholine in the fridge here. Do you know what that is?”

  Ali’s eyes widened. He was familiar with the drug.

  “I was just sent a file with your resume. Very impressive. With a background like that, I bet you know all about succinylcholine. I don’t even have to tell you what it does,” Reece informed his subject.

  Reece knew it well. It had been a favorite of the CIA doctors assigned to his covert action unit in Iraq. They had developed techniques that left no physical marks on the body. This was one of them. The American public was familiar with waterboarding. They had never read an article or heard talking heads debate the merits or legalities of this technique. Waterboarding had nothing on what Reece was preparing to do.

  “In case you need a refresher course, it’s a muscle paralytic, meaning it’s going to paralyze every muscle in your body. You will be able to hear, see, and feel everything, but you will not be able to move. Most notably, you will not be able to breathe.”

  Ali shifted nervously in his restraints.

  “You cannot do this to me. I am a Swiss citizen. I demand to see an attorney and a representative at the consulate.”

  “Unfortunately, I am not with the FBI, the police, or any agency who gives a shit. Let’s see if this stuff works as well as I remember.”

  Reece held up a bag valve mask.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked. “Of course, you do. You’re a doctor. It’s an Ambu bag, an artificial respirator.”

  Reece extracted 50 mg of succinylcholine from a bottle into a syringe and injected it into the IV port.

  Ali’s eyes widened again, and he thrashed in an attempt to free his hands of the duct tape.

  “It might take a second or two to fully take effect,” Reece advised, pulling a strip of silver duct tape from the roll.