by Jude Hardin
But as he sat there trying to recover from the trauma of the procedure, three men with automatic weapons stepped into the room.
17
“Put your hands behind your head and get up out of the chair,” the man to Mike’s left said. “Slowly. Don’t make me tell you twice.”
Mike weighed his options. Three men, three machineguns.
Uzi One, Uzi Two, and Uzi Three.
All wearing black overcoats and ski masks, all average height and weight.
These men were not CIA operatives, and they weren’t cops. They had to have come from Oberwand. They must have known about Mike’s bad tooth, somehow, and they must have coerced Dr. Fergusson—along with any other underground dentists in the area—into alerting them if Mike showed up to get it fixed. Maybe Fergusson had taken the opportunity to call them when the phone rang earlier. After he talked to his grandson.
The holographic display hovering over Mike’s left eye immediately started drawing vectors and calculating probabilities based on his position in the chair relative to the armed intruders standing in front of the door. The odds of killing all three of them before at least one got a shot off was close to zero.
Fergusson had slinked into the closet with the nitrous oxide when the gunmen walked in. Otherwise, Mike could have grabbed him and used him as a shield.
“Where’s Nika Dunning?” Mike said.
“Out of the chair. Now!” Uzi Two shouted, ignoring Mike’s question.
Mike wondered why they hadn’t executed him yet. Maybe they were hesitant to fire the weapons in the residential neighborhood, fearful that someone would call 911 and that the police would arrive before they could get Mike’s body loaded into their vehicle.
Or maybe Oberwand wanted Mike alive for some reason.
Mike laced his fingers together behind his head. As he started to climb out of the chair, an earsplitting report rang out and the top of Uzi Two’s skull exploded in a spray of blood and brain and bone. His automatic rifle spit several rounds into the floor as he collapsed forward.
“Drop your weapons!” a voice from the hallway shouted. “Facedown on the floor!”
Uzi One and Uzi Three looked at each other, and then they turned in unison and started firing toward the doorway. The man who’d killed Uzi Two shot back, and soon bullets were flying in every direction.
Hoping to avoid any stray rounds, Mike got down on the floor and started crawling toward the closet. As the firefight continued, he stood and opened the door and slid inside and grabbed Dr. Fergusson by the throat.
“Who are those guys?” he said.
Fergusson shook his head. “I don’t know. Please, I’m just an old man.”
“Tell me who they are, or I’m going to rip out your windpipe.”
“A man came here yesterday. He had a very bad scar on the right side of his face, like someone had opened his cheek with the blade of an ice skate or something. He told me you might be coming.”
“What else did he say?”
“He gave me five hundred dollars up front, said there would be another thousand later. If you showed up here, and if I called him.”
“Was he a cop? Did he show you an ID?”
“He didn’t show me anything. He just gave me the cash, and a phone number to call. Please, I have a heart condition, and—”
Mike jammed the tip of his thumb into a pressure point behind Dr. Fergusson’s right ear, and the elderly dentist slumped to the floor mid-sentence, his head clanking metallically against the bottle of laughing gas.
The shooting had stopped. Mike looked around the closet for some kind of weapon, but before he could find anything the door swung open and Uzi One shouted for him to get on his knees. Uzi Three stood a few feet off to the side, loading his weapon with a fresh magazine.
Mike did the math again, and the odds were still stacked heavily against him. He had no choice but to comply for the moment, hoping that a better opportunity would present itself en route to wherever these guys wanted to take him. Then again, maybe he would just go along for the ride. Maybe they were planning to take him to Oberwand, and that was exactly where he wanted to be.
When he fell to his knees, Uzi One grabbed him by the hair and pulled him out of the closet and slapped a pair of cuffs on his wrists. The gunman slid a ski mask over Mike’s head, only he put it on backwards so Mike couldn’t see out of it.
“We need to get out of here,” Uzi Three said.
“You think? Here, do his legs while I take care of the guy in the closet.”
Mike felt the duct tape being wrapped around his ankles, and a few seconds later he heard a single gunshot and a ricochet, followed by the continuous hiss of compressed gas escaping from the damaged canister.
18
When Nika opened her eyes, she saw a fox drinking from the creek. When she shifted, inadvertently rustling the bed of leaves beneath her, the animal turned and locked eyes with her and then darted away.
She’d slept for hours. She didn’t know what time it was, but from the sun’s position in the sky, she guessed it to be nine or ten in the morning. She felt rested, rejuvenated, better than she had in days.
She stood and tried to stretch some of the soreness out of her back and neck. Remarkably, her foot didn’t hurt anymore, and the swelling was gone. Dipping it into the freezing water must have helped. She squatted and urinated and dabbed herself dry with a corner of the blanket, relieved that her kidneys were still functioning after being so close to dehydration.
It was still a little chilly outside, but not nearly as cold as last night. She walked to the water, knelt down and drank until her belly was full. She needed to get to the bottom of the mountain and find help. Surely the bad guys were out looking for her by now. She could only hope that they didn’t have dogs helping them. If they had dogs, she was toast.
The four-wheeler path would probably be the quickest route, but it would also be the most likely way to get recaptured. Nika decided to follow the creek instead. Lined with small pebbles, the bank was relatively easy to walk on. Not as easy as the dirt on the path, but much better than the underbrush through the woods. She draped the blanket over her shoulders, held it closed with her hands as she made her way along the edges of the peaceful little brook, thinking this would be a wonderful place to visit under different circumstances. A beautiful spot for a picnic, she thought.
Which reminded her of how hungry she was.
She stopped and flicked the cigarette lighter. Using the size of the flame as a gauge, she guessed the fuel was at least half gone. She clicked the top shut and pressed the metal against her face, enjoying its warmth for a few seconds before continuing onward, knowing it would never last her through another night.
She thought about movies and TV shows she’d seen that involved surviving in the wilderness, and she wondered if it might be possible to catch a fish or a rabbit or something and—
No, it was foolish to even think about anything like that. Nika had no idea how to clean and cook an animal, even if she was able to catch one—which was highly unlikely. Anyway, she didn’t have a knife or anything, and she certainly couldn’t tear into it with her teeth like some kind of wild predator. Just thinking about it horrified her. She couldn’t even eat a hamburger medium rare.
But she sure was hungry. She wanted an open-face roast beef sandwich with gravy and mashed potatoes and green beans. As soon as she got back to civilization, she would find a diner and order a big plate of that. And some rolls with butter.
She walked on.
By the time the sun was directly overhead, she figured she’d traveled a mile or so. She was sweating some, and she could feel that her face was starting to burn, even though the temperature was probably only around fifty degrees Fahrenheit. The creek had narrowed, and she was starting to worry that it might eventually run out completely, so she stopped and drank her fill again.
And that’s when she heard the faint moan of gasoline-powered engines.
To the east, bac
k toward the path.
Four-wheelers, she guessed. Coming up the mountain. They were still pretty far away, but they were getting closer.
The needle on Nika’s internal anxiety meter immediately shot into the red zone. Her heart rate quickened, and her chest got tight. Careful of where she was stepping, she walked into the woods and climbed a little hill that overlooked a ravine. From there, she could see a section of the path in the far distance. The ATVs hadn’t made it to that point yet, but they were coming. The engines were getting louder.
Nika’s perch was quite a distance from the creek, maybe a hundred yards. She hurried back down there and started wading through the middle of the stream, hoping to put some distance between spots where hounds might be able to pick up her scent. She hadn’t heard any barking or howling yet, but it was always best to err on the side of caution. Her daddy had taught her that when she was very young.
The water had gotten shallow, only a few inches deep now, and the creek had narrowed to the point where Nika could almost straddle it. The sun had probably warmed it a few degrees since last night, but it was still blisteringly cold. Nika’s feet started going numb after a few minutes, and she had to step back onto the bank for a while. She alternated back and forth, only able to tolerate the icy stream for brief periods.
After a few trips in and out of the freezing water, she decided she wasn’t going to fool any dogs anyway. The gaps weren’t far enough apart, and it would soon be obvious to the dogs and their keepers that she’d followed the creek down the mountain. She stayed on the periphery, moving as fast as she could, the pins and needles of her returning circulation stabbing at her soles in concert with the pebbles along the side of the stream.
She trudged on through the pain, determined to somehow make it out of this nightmare alive. If only she could make it to the bottom of the mountain. Surely there was a road down there, and surely it would lead her to people who could help. She had a good night’s sleep under her belt, and she felt strong. Keep moving, she told herself. One foot in front of the other. Don’t stop, no matter what.
Nika knew that she could do this. All she needed was a little luck. And maybe some divine intervention. It had been a while since she had been to church, but she still believed, and she said a brief and silent prayer now for herself. She didn’t want to die. She deserved to be punished for what had happened to her brother and sister, but she didn’t want to die.
The noise from the engines had peaked, and now the grinding whines grew faint again as they and Nika proceeded in opposite directions. They were heading toward the cave, which was a good thing. It probably meant that the riders hadn’t learned about Nika’s disappearance yet, about her vicious assault on the man in the hooded sweatshirt. Once they got up there and discovered what was going on, the search would begin in earnest.
All the more reason for Nika to move along as fast as she could.
Just as she had feared, the water eventually narrowed to nearly nothing. Still, she stayed the course, following the trickle to a limestone cliff. The water cascaded over the edge in a thin but steady stream, terminating in a rocky pool below. There was a dry gulch beyond the pool where the water resumed its trek down the mountain during rainy periods.
It was a breathtaking moment, the late autumn sun beaming through the treetops and glistening on the crystal pond below, the sound of the water flowing and the smell of fallen leaves. The beauty and serenity wasn’t lost on Nika, but what caught her attention most was the structure built on the clearing beyond it all. It appeared to be a barn of some sort, its cedar siding weathered gray and its metal roof rusted at the edges. The surrounding area seemed to be well maintained, which told Nika that people were there on a regular basis. Maybe there was food inside. Maybe even a phone.
She decided to hike down there to check it out.
She held the Zippo with her teeth, tied the blanket around her neck like a cape. Careful of her footing, using branches and ledges and natural depressions in the ancient stone, she slowly made her way down the face of the cliff.
When she got to the bottom, she drank from the pool and then headed toward the general direction of the barn. From the waterfall, it took her about thirty minutes to get there. Tired and hungry and fully aware that the structure might belong to the people she was running away from, she crept to one of the rear corners, stopped and listened.
Silence. There was a diesel generator to her left, but it wasn’t running at the moment. It was cold to the touch, and it needed a paint job. For all Nika knew, it hadn’t been started in years. She wondered if the property had been abandoned at some point. The grounds didn’t look quite as well maintained as they had from a distance.
She ventured around to the front, where a rusty chain secured a double set of doors. There was a padlock, but it was so corroded that the locking mechanism had frozen in the open position. It had been hooked through two links of the chain to keep the doors from swinging open, but Nika had no problem removing it and then gaining entry to the building.
Inside, there were two four-wheelers, a golf cart, a riding lawn mower, a plastic cooler, and a tool chest. A rake and a shovel and a pick and some other miscellaneous gardening implements had been hung on the wall with nails.
Nika opened the cooler. There was ice in it, which meant that someone had been here recently. There were some cans of soft drinks and some bottles of water and some sandwiches wrapped in plastic. She grabbed one of the sandwiches and tore it open and took a big wonderful bite. Ham and cheese. It was the best thing she’d ever eaten in her life. She ate the whole thing, washed it down with some lemon-lime soda, giddy with the goodness of it all.
As Nika unwrapped another sandwich, she spotted something of interest in the far left corner of the barn, something just a little too good to be true. She walked over there to check it out, saw that it wasn’t a mirage after all, that someone had left an entire set of men’s clothing wadded up in a ball. Pants, shirt, jacket, underwear, socks, shoes, everything.
Clothes!
The items were way too big for her, of course, but she didn’t care about that. It was something to wear. She put the pants and the shirt on, rolled the legs and the sleeves up, found a leather punch in the tool chest to make another hole in the belt. She slipped on the white sports socks and tied the sneakers as tightly as she could. She looked like some sort of hobo, she guessed, but at least she wouldn’t have to face the world in nothing but a blanket.
She walked over to the electric golf cart, saw that it was fully charged. As her getaway vehicle, it would be much quieter than one of the four-wheelers, and she certainly didn’t want to draw any attention to herself. She quickly loaded the cooler and the toolbox and a few other things into the back, and then she propped the barn doors open and climbed onto the cart.
Before she pushed the start button, she felt something uncomfortable inside her left shoe. A rock or a woodchip or something. She pulled the sneaker off and shook it, but nothing fell out.
She held the shoe to the light and looked inside, saw a tiny piece of paper sticking out of the arch side of the insole. She pulled it out and unfolded it. On one side there was part of a Jiffy Lube logo, and on the other side some handwriting.
Payphone, Shell station, 3rd and Biscayne, October 28 at 7pm.
A chill slithered from the base of Nika’s spine to the top of her scalp.
These were Mike’s shoes.
These were his clothes.
The people who had kidnapped her had him now, and there was no way she was leaving this mountain without him.
19
Holding a gun to his head while unlocking the handcuffs and unwrapping the duct tape, Mike’s captors had stripped all his clothes off, everything except the backwards ski mask. After a short drive out of the city, they’d forced him into the back of some kind of trailer, and then they’d hauled him up a mountain and into the echoing chambers of a tunnel or a cave. From there, an elevator descended deep into the ground, and now Mike
was lying on a mattress in a small windowless cell. They’d finally removed the blindfold, but he was stretched out flat on his back with his wrists and ankles chained to the bed frame. He was pretty much helpless.
There was an extremely bright fluorescent light over the bunk, meant to serve as some kind of torture, Mike supposed. Sleep deprivation. It probably worked on normal people, but the MK-2 allowed Mike to shield it at will. Not that he planned on sleeping anytime soon. He was too revved up, wondering apprehensively what was going to happen next.
And as it turned out, he didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
The room went black and the solid steel door swung open.
A man wearing a hooded sweatshirt carried a wooden chair into the cell and sat down beside Mike’s bed. He smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. He was hidden in the shadows, but Mike could see him clearly using the MK-2’s night vision program. He would have run a facial recognition search, but he was too far underground to access the Internet.
“Good morning,” the man said.
“It’s not morning,” Mike said. “It’s afternoon. Three-seventeen to be exact.”
The man laughed. “That thing in your head has a clock. Of course it does. I should have known. I bet you can tell me what time it is anywhere in the world. What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?”
“You’d be amazed,” Mike said.
“I’m sure I would. In fact, I’m already amazed by some of the things you’ve done. Slipping past my men in Memphis the other day, for example. Not only slipping past them, but killing them in the process. Quite an accomplishment.”
“You’re Oberwand?”
“It didn’t take a revolutionary brain-computer interface to figure that one out, now did it? Yes, I’m Oberwand, and no, I’m not going to tell you anything about my operation. I’m going to get what I want from you, and then I’m going to open your skull and remove the implant.”
“Where’s Nika Dunning?”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Oberwand said. “You answer some of my questions, and I’ll answer some of yours. That’s fair, I think.”
