by Allan Cole
Suddenly, a tremendous explosion erupted, transforming the kitchen door into splinters and hurling the refrigerator aside. The force of the blast ripped the table away and threw Mr. Karoda against the wall.
Several of Ah Beng’s men charged in, but before they could open up, the wily Japanese gangster flung himself across the room, piling into them.
For a moment, his assault caught the men off guard. Karoda hurled men this way and that, smashing chairs and tables and kitchen equipment.
The rain-slick floor was a help to Mr. Karoda at first
– keeping his opponents off-balance. But he gradually weakened. His wounds opened up and blood streamed out.
“Get back,” Ah Beng roared to his underlings.
The men fell away, clearing a path and Mr. Karoda blinked blood and sweat from his eyes. He glared defiantly at Ah Beng, smiling through bloody teeth.
Mr. Karoda motioned with his hands. “Come,” he said. “We finish.”
But Ah Beng wasn’t having any. He leapt high, lashing out with a classic hammer kick, smashing Mr. Karoda to the ground.
He recovered, then snapped his fingers at his men and one of them found his machine pistol and handed it to their boss.
Mr. Karoda rose up on an elbow and grasped Ah Beng by the leg. Ah Beng calmly kicked him away, then fired a single shot. Mr. Karoda fell back and was very still.
Ah Beng turned to his men. In Chinese, he said, “I want no one to leave this place alive.”
His men roared approval and, with Ah Beng leading the way, they charged after Ann.
*****
Deep in the house, Ann and Zach raced along gloomy hallways, bursting through doors and dashing through the rooms. But all the while the sounds of pursuit were coming closer.
Outside, the storm seemed to have intensified, lashing the house with wind and rain. Heavy objects crashed against the sides of the old mansion, as if there were an army trying to smash its way in to join Ann’s enemies.
Ruth called out of the shadows, “Dr. D. Over here.”
In the dim light, Ann and Zach saw Ruth standing in front of the lab entrance. Ruth had two large pesticide bombs in either hand and a hypodermic gun jammed in a sash about her waist. Very piratical, in a registered nurse sort of way.
She motioned to them. “This way.”
“Aunt Ruth,” Zach cried out, as glad as he’d ever been in his life to see someone.
Bad as things were, Ruth grinned. “I love it,” she said. “Aunt Ruth. His very first words.”
“Actually,” Ann said, “they’re his second or third group of words, but let’s not quibble.”
Ruth pushed the lab door open. “We’d better get going,” she said. “Mark’s getting everything set up.”
Pushing Zach ahead, they started into the other room, but then someone opened fire and the far door was shattered by a hail of bullets.
Ann swept Zach out of harm’s way, trying to return fire. But the barrage of lead was too intense and she had to dodge to the side.
Two of Ah Beng’s men burst into the room behind the screen of bullets. But before they could get set, Ruth popped the lids off the pesticide bombs, depressed the buttons, then hurled them at the men.
Dragging Ann and Zach with her, she fled into the lab, slamming the door behind her.
Thick yellow clouds of poisonous smoke spewed from the pesticide bombs, filling the room with noxious smoke. The men choked and gasped, fighting for breath. They fell to the floor, clawing at their faces.
Ah Beng strode into the room, a handkerchief covering his nose and mouth. He looked at his men, then calmly turned, pointed his weapon at one of the windows and fired, shattering it.
Immediately, the roaring winds of Hurricane Georgia whipped into the room, carrying the smoke away.
Ah Beng kicked one of the fallen men aside and marched forward, ignoring the remaining smoke. The others hung back, frightened.
He looked at them, shaking his head in disgust. “Are you cockroaches?” he bellowed. “Are you ants? If you are, I’ll kill you all myself.”
The men, coughing and wheezing, backed away. They all stared at the pesticide containers, which were now dead. Then they looked at the lab door. Would more be thrown into the room?
Ah Beng saw that he was losing them and forced calm. He said, “I promised you a thousand for every person you killed in this house. Now, I’ll double that. Two thousand a head. Plus – ten thousand dollars to the man who kills the round-eyed doctor. And ten thousand more for the boy.”
He looked them over, saw the light of confidence and greed returning to their eyes. “Are you with me?” he shouted.
The men growled their agreement, then formed teams. The lead team smashed through the lab door.
A second team opened up with deadly machine gun fire.
There was no reply.
Howling curses, they all charged through the door, Ah Beng at their heels.
*****
In the large main room of the Phoenix House, Mark was putting the finishing touches on his pride and joy - the TV monitor booby trap.
Mark had strung a half-a-dozen old-fashioned monitors together, placing them on a broad table, the glass screens facing the doorway.
He had the backs ripped off, parts pulled out and he was stripping wires – attaching them here and there, when Ann and the others piled in, the sounds of gunfire following them.
Ann saw his display and nodded in approval. “Looks like you’re nearly done,” she said.
Mark shook his head, saying, “The good news is that I’ve got the generator fixed. The bad news is that you guys have to buy me more time.”
“I can do that,” Ann said. She looked down at Zach. “Stay with Aunt Ruth, okay?”
Zach took Ruth’s hand, puppy love gleaming in his eyes. “I won’t let anybody hurt her,” he said.
Ann grinned, then saw Mark shoot the kid a look, and knew he was making a mental note that the boy was now speaking. But – no surprise here - he made no comment, but only returned to his work.
Ruth squeezed Zach’s hand. “Thank you, Zach,” she said, giving Ann a warning look that said, Don’t argue. Get the hell out of here.
“Right,” Ann said. She hugged Zach, then turned and slipped through the door.
*****
Ann crept into the lab. Not far away, she heard the men ripping through the Phoenix House. Destroying everything in their path as they gradually found their way through the warren the old house presented.
Ann winced at the damage, thinking of all the planning and work that had gone into the place.
Then she shook it off. Ann had too many wellordered refugee clinics ripped out from under her by warlords and bandits to let this bit of destructive business get her down.
A clinic, she thought, or even a hospital, was not necessarily an edifice – a building specially constructed to house and treat the ill. In her experience, it could be a forest glen, or a space between two sand dunes, or even out in the open in the middle of thundering battle.
She’d done all that. Knew too well how callous and unfeeling people could be when they weren’t the sick, or wounded ones, desperately seeking help. Or the families – the shrieking families, begging for Ann to conjure a miracle. To raise their child, or husband, or wife, or other loved ones, from the bloody mess on the gurney. And make them whole again.
But as Ann wrote the Phoenix House off in her mind, she also regretted its loss. She’d had a rare opportunity to do something here.
Paul had given her a kind of lottery ticket that could be cashed in over and over again for the best medical care she could offer. Which was considerable.
And what about Paul? How would this affect him? He’d put his faith and trust in her and had pulled a glorious rabbit out of a Senatorial hat.
Thinking about it made her madder. She recalled the first day of clinic business – the young mother too inexperienced to deal with a sick child; the cab driver dodging retribution from a shyloc
k while he struggled to care for his Down's Syndrome daughter; and on and on… the myriad of human problems that Ann knew that she was ideally suited to solve.
She sighed, pressing forward into the room. Then she heard the sound of approaching boots and rushed to a shelf that held an array of oxygen bottles.
Quickly, she unscrewed their tops, one after the other, letting the gas hiss out.
When she was done, she quietly placed each hissing canister on the floor. She paused to take a deep breath of the oxygen.
She remembered that old Tennyson refrain: “My strength is the strength of ten because my heart is pure.” A gym rat friend had used that – not knowing where it had originally come from. He used to lift enormous weights – perform seemingly impossible feats. Muttering his mantra: “Because my heart is pure… I have the strength of ten.”
Ann took a few more honks off the oxygen, whispering those magical words.
Then, strengthened, she moved on.
In the outer room, she heard boots approaching. And she heard Ah Beng say in Chinese, “Leave no one alive, do you understand me?”
Ann nodded, as if agreeing with him, then she ran to the light switch and shut it off. All around her, the oxygen containers were emptying themselves in a continuous hiss.
She took another deep breath of the super volatile, but life-giving gas, and crept from the room, shutting the door behind her.
***** If Ann had remained in the room, she would have heard indistinct voices coming closer. And as the voices grew louder she would have heard Ah Beng bullying his men, demanding that they leave no one alive.
And then, after a long moment, she would have heard a rustle at the entrance to the lab. She’d have seen the door open, dim light spilling in.
Then she’d catch sight of one of Ah Beng’s men peering cautiously into the room, then reaching out a tentative hand to flip on the light switch.
But when he flipped it on, a tiny blue spark leapt out as the connection was made.
And that spark was all that was needed to ignite a space filled floor to ceiling with oxygen, one of the most flammable gasses on Earth.
The entire room exploded, sending a huge ball of flame that quickly engulfed the man, setting him on fire.
Ah Beng stepped into the room, noted the destruction, then looked at his man who was rolling this way and that on the floor, trying to grind out the flames.
There was no pity on Ah Beng’s face as he watched the man’s agony. Instead, he drew his pistol and shot him.
He moved on, hunting Ann and her friends.
His men followed, more than a little spooked. *****
In the clinic’s waiting room, Mark was ready. The TV monitors were arranged around the floor so they formed a deadly arc – not unlike blast-directed Claymore mines. Zach watched in awe as Mark put the finishing touches to his opus of destruction.
He twisted bare wires together, dropping them to the floor in a snake’s nest of similar wires, then stepped back.
Zach had a pail of water at ready. He grinned at Ann and Ruth, who were admiring Mark’s handiwork.
Mark said, “Okay, I’ve pulled the fuses and I’m running raw current off the generator into these suckers.”
He wiped perspiration from his forehead. “Making a circuit trigger gave me a little trouble, but then I had a bright idea.”
He motioned to Zach, who grinned an evil grin, and poured water over the nest of bare wires. Then he splashed more toward the entrance to the room, making a trail from the door to the bare wires.
Mark said, “It’s a weird sort of landmine, you know? Somebody steps into the water and –"
“And the whole thing goes – Kapow!” Zach cried, happy to have a voice to add to the proceedings.
“Great work,” Ann said. “Now, let’s retreat to the garage. With luck, this will slow them down enough so we can get the hell out of here.”
Zach looked at his big sister, suddenly alarmed. “What about Mr. Karoda?” he wanted to know.
Ann looked at him, her eyes sad.
Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes. Tears that he manfully stifled.
“Okay,” he said. “I get it.”
*****
In the hallway, Ah Beng and his men approached the waiting room with more caution than before. They leapfrogged forward, one team on guard as the others rushed each room, cleared it, then motioned for the others to follow.
Finally, they came to the waiting room door. Ah Beng made hand signals. Weapons ready, one man stood in front of the door, the other stood to the side.
Ah Beng gave the signal and the first man – a burly fellow with muscles of iron – leapt forward, slamming his foot just to the side of the doorknob. One kick was all it took
– the door crashed open.
The second man jumped forward, ready to fire. But nothing happened.
Slowly, Ah Beng crept forward. He peered into the waiting room. He saw the blank TV monitors set up in front of the door and frowned. What the hell was this?
Finally, seeing no sign of danger, he motioned to his men. “What are you waiting for?”
The men trooped onward.
But as the first man entered the room, his foot splashed into a pool of water. Without warning, a tornado of fiery sparks burst upward and the TV sets imploded, showering glass and metal parts everywhere.
The men shrieked in pain and fear.
The first two flopped on the floor, shards of glass protruding from their bodies.
Even Ah Beng felt the impact. A tiny shard of glass stuck in his cheek.
He brushed it away, looked at the spot of blood on his finger, then slowly wiped it on the shirt of one of his men.
“The first thing I intend to teach the doctor,” he told the others. “Is how we remove the skin of a human being.”
He gestured with his finger, as if encircling someone with a knife.
Then he took both hands, gripped the edges of an imaginary person, then ripped upward, showing how the skin would be ripped off – up and over the victim’s head.
His men growled, excited by his demonstration.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEEN
In the garage, Ann and her friends were greeted with yet another setback. They stared in dismay as Ruth’s flashlight cut through the darkness, showing the slashed tires of Ann’s Jeep.
“Now what?” Ruth said. Ann flicked her own flashlight over the four ruined tires, as if somehow the light would reveal some sort of miracle, instead of a disaster.
She pulled herself together and ran the beam around the large room. Besides the main garage door, there was a small door on one side, with a window fixed into it.
She went to the rain-streaked window and peered out. The storm had abated somewhat, but it was still pretty nasty beyond the door. Rain-lashed debris flew across the yard, driven by Georgia’s high winds.
But then Ann found what she was looking for. Across the yard, not that far away, she could see a sturdy garden shed.
Lightning crashed, illuminating the shed in a brief, fiery glare. An omen, she wondered? A good one, hopefully.
She turned back, the decision made. “We’d better take our chances outside,” she said. “It doesn’t look so bad right now.”
“Define bad,” Ruth said.
Ann shrugged “To begin with, I don’t see any guys with machine guns,” she said.
“That’s a nice start,” Mark said.
Ann continued, “There’s a garden shed just across the yard. If we can hole up in there, I’m sure we’ll find all kinds of stuff to defend ourselves. There’s fertilizer, kerosene and some very sharp shovels, if I recall.”
“Sounds more like a chamber of horrors than an innocent garden shed,” Ruth said.
“Come on,” Ann said, opening the side door, letting in the wind and rain.
They braced themselves to make a break for the garden shed, but just then a tremendous explosion rocked the garage, hammering them to the ground.
Ann managed to
see Ah Beng’s men ducking through into the garage and then they opened up with their automatic weapons.
She shoved Zach out into the storm. “Run for the shed,” she shouted.
Before the boy could protest, she slammed the door on him. Then she whirled about, shot the bolt of the AK-47 and opened up on her attackers.
One of the men was hit. He shouted in pain and dropped to the floor. The others scurried behind a crate and returned fire, forcing Ann to duck behind the Jeep with Ruth and Mark.
Several other men piled into the garage, filling the air with deadly lead hornets. Outgunned, Ann and her friends could do nothing but crouch low, praying for a break.
Mark motioned to Ann. “Help me into the Jeep,” he said.
Ann puzzled – what the hell was he thinking? But when Mark slipped out his pocket knife and slit the canvas of the Jeep’s back cover she got a vague idea of what he was after.
She jumped up and laid down a withering fire as Mark widened the hole then wriggled through it like a giant snake.
Ah Beng’s men spotted him and fought back, sending streams of bullets into the vehicle as Mark crawled forward. But Ann drove them away, dropping clip after clip as she reloaded.
Finally, Mark squeezed his big frame into the front. He fumbled for the key, which was thankfully in the ignition and fired the engine.
As the Jeep roared into life, he used one big hand to drop the parking brake, then jammed the vehicle into gear. With the other hand, he slammed the accelerator all the way to the floor.
The slashed tires were no impediment at all in such a confined space.
Men screamed in pain and terror as the vehicle exploded forward, crushing them.
Finally, the garage wall ended the Jeep’s short, but dramatic journey. Tires squealed, the smell of burning rubber filled the room. Then the engine coughed and died.
Silence descended.
Ann rose, Ruth coming up with her. There was no longer any cover. Ann ejected her clip and reached for another. But there wasn’t another. She was flat out of ammo. She peered through the gloom. As far as she could tell, all of Ah Beng’s men were down and out.
And then lights smashed on, blinding them and they fell back, as if they’d been hit.
