chapter 75
DARK
The operating theater was state-of-the-art—once.
Once being 1804.
For most of the ninteenth century, surgeries were not private affairs. If you had a limb that needed to be removed—or perhaps an unsightly tumor growing out of your chest, cataracts forming over your eyes, painful, stabbing stones in your bladder—then your procedure would be open to the general public. The hospital, in fact, would hang notices around the city to detail what would be done to you, on what day, and at what time. When it came time for your procedure, you would not be given anesthesia. Instead you would be encouraged to drink yourself into a stupor or binge yourself on opium until you couldn’t distinguish angels from surgeons. And then up to three hundred people—surgeons, students, the general public looking for a little bloodletting to liven their day—would sit or stand in this grand amphitheater, looking down as the nation’s top medical minds would take their blades to your quivering body.
Yeah, Dark thought. Labyrinth would love a place like this.
At first glance, the room appeared to be empty. But that meant nothing. Dark’s quarry could be hiding on the upper levels, waiting to pounce.
The phone on Dark’s hip buzzed. A text from Riggins: CALL ME
Great timing, Riggins. Goddamn it....
Dark ignored the phone and continued searching, prepared to shoot at anything that moved. If that was Trey Halbthin back in Paris, then he knew the motherfucker could move fast.
Again, the cell phone:CALL ME NOW
Dark called—Riggins answered after the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Philadelphia.”
“I’ve done some digging into this whole Global Alliance thing, especially after you told me that Labyrinth was trying to point a finger at one of your teammates.” Riggins spat out the word teammates like a divorcée would say new husband.
“Anyway, everybody checks out, except for one thing, which is honestly driving me a little crazy here . . .”
But Dark didn’t hear the next part because his brain instantly tuned in to another sound, echoing off the walls of the surgical theater.
The teeth-rattling sound of a blade being unsheathed.
chapter 76
LABYRINTH
I tell Dark,
Welcome back to the maze!
Something beeps, softly—I wonder if Dark hears it.
I say,
I’m going to enjoy working on you. I’ve got at least fifteen minutes to play. I can do a lot in fifteen minutes.
And then I show him what I’m holding:
A capital saw—
Also known as an amputation saw. Pistol grip ivory handle, eighteen-inch blade, made by a Philadelphia metallurgist during the Civil War.
Dark inches closer, asks me,
Where’s your mask?
I smile, tell him,
No need to hide anymore. My work is over. There is nothing you can do to stop me. I couldn’t take back my last two gifts to the world, even if I wanted to.
I know what Dark is doing—trying to buy some time, inch closer, keep me talking, all of that banal cop bullshit, until he can pull his Glock and aim it at my chest and squeeze the trigger and watch the bullet slice through my body before I am able to slice through HIM.
I ask,
Do you know what this is?
Dark says,
I don’t give a shit.
And then pulls his Glock
Aims it at my chest
And squeezes the trigger
Or TRIES TO anyway.
Nothing happens. Look at poor Steve Dark, confused, wondering why his Glock 19 is refusing to let him shoot the bad guy. . . .
chapter 77
Natasha was moving swiftly past an intensive care unit on the second floor when a patient started to code.
“Code blue, code blue!” someone cried.
Alarms sounded and staff rushed around her. Life in a big city hospital. Familiar turf; she’d spent weeks with her stepfather as he died a slow painful death from pancreatic cancer. Everything about this hospital, from the shade of the tile floors to the antiseptic scent in the air to even the crisp uniforms of nurses reminded her of that time. Natasha tried to keep her mind focused, but a few seconds later another patient crashed, just a few rooms down the hall. More alarms, more frenzy. And then, against mathematical odds, a third patient. And a fourth . . .
Nurses, obviously panicked:
“I’ve got someone coding over here, too.”
“What the hell is going on?”
Over the loudspeaker, a voice struggling to sound calm said,
“Doctor Allcome to floor three, Doctor Allcome to floor three, please.”
Natasha knew this was hospital code for a serious emergency—“all come.” Meaning, all unoccupied medical personnel were being ordered to report to the third floor immediately.
Which was when she realized they were too late. Time was up. Labyrinth’s plan was already under way.
Pennsylvania General was equipped with over 3,200 flat-screen TVs, in hallways and waiting areas and in patient rooms. At the same time, they all began to show the same thing:
Another message from Labyrinth.
Images: Crowded hospital hallways. Patients in cold steel beds pushed up against walls. Wan faces. Nurses weaving in and around the chaos.
LABYRINTH
Health care is the biggest industry in the world and achieved that status by being a for-profit industry. It’s far better to keep someone sick, so they keep building up bills and forcing people to fork over their savings for care, rather than actually cure anyone. I will take this industry back and make it about SAVING THE PEOPLE.
chapter 78
DARK
Dark tried to squeeze the trigger of the Glock again—and once again, it refused to budge. The gun seemed like a useless chunk of metal in his hand. What the fuck was going on? By this time, Labyrinth was rushing toward him, impossibly fast, surgical saw held close to his right arm, muscles tensed, ready to strike . . .
NOW.
Dark dropped the gun and threw his body backward.
The blade whipped across Dark’s neck—shredding several layers but failing to slice muscle. A fraction of an inch would have made the difference between a nasty scrape and a life-ending severed artery.
As Dark’s back hit the floor, Labyrinth was coming at him with a savage backhand swipe. Dark caught Labyrinth by the elbow and twisted. The man’s arm felt like steel-reinforced concrete. His strength was unreal, especially on such an average frame.
“Let’s start with a hand,” said Labyrinth, then head-butted Dark. Savagely. Cleanly. Bright flashes appeared in his vision. Dark struggled to keep his grip on Labyrinth’s arm, but felt his muscles trembling. His forehead felt like it had burst open. What was the man’s skull made of—iron?
Then Dark remembered the gun, a few inches away. He twisted his body to the right, finally releasing his grip on Labyrinth’s arm. The blade cut through the air an inch above his head. Dark rolled, grabbed the Glock. Firing it may not work. But even an empty gun was a useful weapon. Dark swung it and smashed it into the side of Labyrinth’s head. Again. And again. And again. Iron skull, meet gun metal. With every blow Dark could feel the raw hate bubbling up inside of him.
Then Labyrinth seized Dark’s hands, clamping down tight. Blood was running down the motherfucker’s face, but the monster was smiling anyway.
“Must drive you crazy,” he hissed.
Labyrinth increased the pressure, and it felt like Dark’s fingers were inside a metal vise. His entire hand throbbed and went numb.
“You have no idea why you couldn’t shoot me, do you?”
“Fuck you.”
The gun in Dark’s hands began to twist around, Labyrinth manipulating his struggling fingers like a lump of clay on a spinning wheel. Too much force, fingers suddenly too slippery, the gun rotating—until Dark was staring down his own barrel.
&nbs
p; “Welcome to the maze,” Labyrinth said.
There was a soft beep.
In that tiny moment, Dark realized that it was his own Glock making that noise. He pushed forward and twisted his body away at the same time, but it was too late. The gun exploded and a bullet ripped through Dark’s bicep.
The pain—unreal.
One hand in front of the other across the cold tile. The gunshot wound throbbing. This wasn’t the first time Dark had been shot, but that fact didn’t make it hurt any less.
Somewhere behind him, he could hear Labyrinth recovering his saw from the floor.
“Where are you going? We still have plenty of time for some amputation techniques.”
One hand . . .
. . . in front of the other.
“I saw police photos of what you did to poor Sqweegel. You must feel pretty horrible, knowing that you sliced up your own brother like lunch meat.”
Dark told himself,
Don’t listen.
Just keep moving.
But the very mention of the name Sqweegel brought it all back—their final confrontation in that monster’s basement lair, the ax swinging up and down, his spindly limbs hacked away from his torso....
And now with the awful knowledge the black blood spurting from the wounds ran through his own veins. Through the small strong heart of his baby girl . . .
Don’t.
Don’t do this to yourself.
Block it out.
Keep moving.
Keep moving . . .
. . . to the case.
“Let me spare you some guilt and show you what it felt like. I think I’ll start with a leg.”
Ignoring the agony in his shoulder, Dark pulled himself to his feet and threw himself forward toward a display case situated along one curved wall of the amphitheater. His body smashed into it, shattering the glass, which rained down on ancient surgical tools. Scalpels. Hacksaws. Labyrinth lunged at him with his amputation saw. Dark spun and put a boot in the middle of his assailant’s chest, knocking the wind out of him. Dark kicked him again as he thrust his hand into the case, cutting his fingertips on the broken glass until they slid across something smooth . . . metallic. Now Dark had a weapon, too.
A scalpel, already stained with blood from Dark’s shredded fingertips.
Labyrinth caught his breath and came at Dark, holding the amputation saw low and to his left, gearing up for another vicious swipe. Dark felt like he was already bleeding in a hundred different places.
“Chopped your own brother up with an ax,” Labyrinth hissed, then made his move, whipping the saw through the air with almost superhuman power and speed. Dark crouched down. The blade whizzed by the top of his head, missing it by millimeters. Dark plunged the scalpel into Labyrinth’s side in a series of jackhammer-like stabs, stick stick stick stick stick, until the man cried out and lost his balance.
But it wasn’t a cry of pain.
It was laughter.
“HA HA HA HA HA!” Labyrinth exclaimed gleefully as he spun around to face Dark. “You are the equal of your brother! You are very good with that scalpel.”
“What do I have to do it with?” Dark asked. “I thought you were better than that.”
“Nothing,” Labyrinth said. “You’re just fun.”
“You say you want change,” Dark said, ignoring him. “What are you changing now by fighting with me?”
“The change has already begun, and there is nothing you or Blair or anyone else can do to stop it. For way too long men like you have steered the masses into false security while raping them blind. Your precious establishment, the one you so blindly serve, is designed to use people. Used for greed and profit and power . . .”
“Just like you’ve been using people to spread your nonsense. That’s the problem. People are smarter than that. They’ll see you for what you are. A monster.”
“Me? A monster? Maybe. Doesn’t matter, though. My role is finished. It’s up to another to lead them out of the chains.”
Another? Dark thought. Does he have a partner in this, or just another puppet?
Labyrinth smiled. “So go ahead, killer. Kill the monster.”
Dark looked at him calmly.
“No.”
chapter 79
DARK
Dark dropped his scalpel—and saw the expression of genuine bewilderment on Labyrinth’s face. A microsecond later, Dark lunged. Labyrinth flinched. Dark grabbed the edges of the amputation saw. Labyrinth redoubled his grip on the weapon, his arms like steel cables. Dark could feel the strength behind it.
“Kill me, killer,” Labyrinth hissed. “Kill me kill me kill me . . .”
Dark focused his strength on twisting the saw around, violently bending Labyrinth’s hands by the wrists, until the blade was facing the opposite direction, however just a few inches above the man’s taut and muscled neck.
“Shut up,” Dark said, and then brought his knee up into Labyrinth’s crotch, followed by a brutal head butt. Dirty street moves—moves a man like Labyrinth, or Trey Halbthin, or whatever the fuck his name was, would not expect. Labyrinth loved to crawl inside his victims’ minds to learn which buttons to push. With Steve Dark, Labyrinth was pressing the buttons marked SQWEEGEL, thinking he could goad Dark into a certain set of predictable behaviors.
But Dark wasn’t channeling his “inner Sqweegel,” or any of that bullshit. He was tapped into his primal self, his real self—the scared kid in the orphanage, the moody teenager wandering the streets of downtown L.A. alone, the rookie cop staring down his first psychopath, the tormented father on the beach, missing the love of his life, holding his little girl’s hand. But most important, the man who was drawn to catch monsters, not join their ranks.
And that man fought mean.
Labyrinth curled up into a ball, dropping the hacksaw. Dark kept hammering him with punches and kicks to keep him off balance.
“You’re not a prophet or a savior,” Dark said. “You’re a fucked-up, overeducated asshole with too much money and power.”
Labyrinth reached up, as if to fend off a punch, but Dark elbowed him in the face, then squeezed a handcuff around his right wrist.
“And I’m a cop. Not a killer.”
Dark dragged Labyrinth down to the operating table, wrapped the other cuff around a thick metal leg that hadn’t been moved in over two hundred years, and cuffed the left wrist. No matter how strong this son of a bitch might be, there was no way he was moving this table. He’d have to break his own hands first, or snap the high-grade steel links between the cuffs.
He took a step back and gazed down at his prey. As much as his body ached and burned and bled, Dark felt a strange euphoria wash over him. The high of closing a case. No—that wasn’t it. This was the high of catching a monster, dragging him kicking and screaming into the light, for all of the world to see.
“You caught him,” a voice said behind him, filling the auditorium.
Dark turned to see Damien Blair enter the room, gun in his hand. Blair wasn’t a field operative; he prided himself on being the “facilitator.” Had he come over on a separate jet? Was he here for a J. Edgar Hoover–style glory moment—the ultimate photo op? That didn’t make sense.
“What are you doing?” Dark asked.
Blair raised the gun.
Chicago Tribune
Breaking: Patient records mix-up results in at least four deaths at two area hospitals; hospital officials say “under control.”
PBS NewsHour
Breaking: Medical mistakes sweeping big city hospitals; doctors overwhelmed.
AP News
Breaking: New Labyrinth riddle received at Pennsylvania General just one hour before the wave of hospital errors.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Breaking: Spokesperson for president of Penn. General confirms that he received a “Labyrinth” letter.
TheSlab.com
Breaking: Now Labyrinth is picking on the sick—what next? Orphans and the elderly?
chapter 80
DARK
Blair had a slightly crazed look on his face.
“I knew you’d catch him, Dark. All this time, I knew it would be you who caught him. There’s never been a manhunter like you.”
“Damien, seriously—put the gun down. He’s out. And he’s not going anywhere. Where’s Natasha and the rest of the team?”
“Move aside,” Blair said quietly. “I’m not asking. Consider that a direct order. Move aside now.”
“Direct order, my ass.”
“Don’t make me shoot through you.”
Dark shook his head, confused. “All this time, and you want to kill him?”
“You don’t understand. He can’t be allowed to live. He’s far too dangerous for that.”
Dark surprised himself by positioning his body squarely in front of Labyrinth’s. Five years ago, he probably would have helped Blair kill this son of a bitch—held him down and everything.
But five years ago, he had an uncontrollable rage in his blood, and he’d almost lost himself. No matter what any blood tests said—he was his own man. Not controlled by his genes, or his bloodline, or anything besides his free will. That was the difference. Dark was a different man now. He wasn’t about to slide back into the past.
He told Blair:
“No. We’re taking him in.”
“You don’t get it. You need to trust me on this one.”
“No, you need to explain it to me.”
Blair sighed—but kept the gun trained on Dark. It didn’t move the slightest bit. The man’s focus was keen, unshakeable.
Dark Revelations Page 21
