Legion

by Robert Swartwood

  “I’m out,” Eli says. “How many rounds do you have left?”

  “None.”

  “Shit.”

  Eli throws his gun at the floor, then takes a deep breath and looks around the room. We’re in an office. Filing cabinets line one wall, a counter with medical supplies lines the other. On the other end of the room is a door.

  “Help me,” Eli says, charging toward the filing cabinets.

  They’re heavy, but we manage to walk them over to the door just as someone tries to open it. A second later someone kicks at the door, but it only buckles in its frame.

  Eli starts toward the other door, asking, “Where is she?”

  “They took her.”

  Eli opens the other door. A light automatically comes on. It looks like a lab. Hell, it is a lab, medical equipment everywhere.

  On the other end of the lab is another door. If the layout is the same as David’s floor, then that door will lead out into a corridor that will loop back to the elevators.

  We head toward the door, Eli scanning the contents of the lab, while behind us they keep trying to kick down the door with the filing cabinet in front of it. Pretty soon they’ll break the door down. Pretty soon they’ll enter the office and come tearing into the lab, which means we better hurry.

  But Eli pauses at the door. He squints at something across the lab.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  He shakes his head and steps out into the corridor. I follow. We’ve gone maybe ten feet when suddenly he stops. Three gurneys are lined up against the wall. Eli goes to the first one, lifts the sheet hiding the bottom.

  “What are you doing?”

  He doesn’t answer me. He checks the second gurney, then the third gurney.

  “Jackpot,” he says, bending and extracting a silver canister from beneath the gurney.

  “What is that?”

  “Oxygen.” He hands me the canister. “Follow me.”

  He hurries back into the lab. He goes straight toward the corner where he was looking earlier. Here there’s a row of vials and beakers. He pushes them aside and grabs a Bunsen burner.

  Eli snaps his fingers at me. “Give me the lighter.”

  I check my pockets before realizing I gave it away. “I don’t have it.”

  His head snaps up. “What?”

  The door in the office buckles again. A few random gunshots accompany it this time.

  Eli starts tearing open drawers, rummaging through them.

  “What are you looking for?”

  He shakes his head, concentrating, and then says, “Aha!” and pulls a flint spark from one of the drawers. He sets it and the Bunsen burner on the counter, then takes the silver canister. He unscrews the top valve, releasing a soft hissing noise.

  “Take this and toss it in the office.”

  I may sometimes be an argumentative son of a bitch, but at this point I’m not about to question anything. I take the canister and toss it into the office. When I turn back, Eli has the Bunsen burner in one hand, the flint spark in the other. He lights the burner, then looks at me, the seriousness deep in his eyes.

  “Run.”

  I run toward the other end of the lab just as the office door finally crashes open. I turn back at the last second and watch as Eli holds the Bunsen burner high over his head and then watch as he throws it into the office. The man standing there is the one from the stairwell. He raises his gun, but that’s as far as he gets. The Bunsen burner hits the ground, only inches away from the silver canister, and the world explodes.

  The blast is enough to send a shockwave through the lab. Many of the glass vials and beakers shatter. Eli hits the ground, though it’s unclear whether or not it’s from the blast. The office beyond is filled with fire. At least one of the men is screaming. The sprinklers in the ceiling automatically turn on, and that alarm we heard before starts up again.

  I scramble toward Eli. I kneel down beside him and ask him if he’s all right. He groans and nods and takes my hand, and I help him back to his feet. We hurry out of the lab into the corridor. Seconds later we’ve looped around to the elevators. The stairwell door is here. Down the hall we can see the three men. One of them is on the ground, motionless, while the two others stand over him. Neither one of them notices us, which is just as well. I let Eli go first, and then we’re in the stairwell headed down.

  fifty-one

  The first floor isn’t deserted like the others. We come out of the stairwell and there are people everywhere, mostly staff running around and shouting to be heard over the alarm. Whether the alarm had briefly gone off down here is impossible to say. The strobes are still flashing and the alarm is still blaring and almost immediately an employee spots us and hurries over and directs us toward the main exit.

  “What’s happening?” Eli asks.

  “We’re not sure, sir, but we’re looking into it. For now, please wait outside. We’ll let you know as soon as you can come back in.”

  She doesn’t ask for our names, what floor we’re coming from, whether either of us is a patient. She’s too harried, too under pressure, to worry about things like that. She simply ushers us out the glass doors where even more employees are waiting. Someone else directs us toward the street. There are hundreds and hundreds of people lined up on the sidewalk. A few are in wheelchairs, some in beds.

  “We did this.”

  I speak before I even realize it, my voice a hushed whisper.

  Eli says, “What?”

  “All of this. We caused it by coming here.”

  He shakes his head. “We didn’t do this. They did.”

  We attempt to fade into the crowd. It’s not easy. Everyone is clustered so close together we have to force our way through. Many people are on their cell phones, calling loved ones. Some are crying. Sirens can be heard off in the distance, fire and police, though some are already here, a few police cruisers blocking traffic on the street.

  I follow Eli and don’t even hear the helicopter at first. But Eli does. He pauses, tilts his head, then turns and looks up at the sky. I do the same.

  Taking off from the top of the hospital is indeed a helicopter. But it’s obviously not a medical helicopter—no red cross on the side, nothing to associate it with the Medford Medical Center. It’s just black. And as we and everyone else around us watch, the black helicopter takes off and zooms over the closest buildings and disappears.

  Eli tugs at my jacket, prompting me to start moving again.

  We fight our way through the crowd, making it to the other side, just as the fire trucks arrive. Because of the cluster of people, they don’t have much room to navigate.

  When we reach the next block, I ask, “That was them?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Where are they taking her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why are they taking her?”

  For some reason I expect him to give the same answer. He doesn’t. He doesn’t give any answer, either verbal or physical. Not even a grunt. Not even the slightest shake of the head. He just keeps walking.

  Soon we’re back in the parking garage. The fourth level is deserted. As Eli approaches the Buick, his pace begins to slow. He takes one deep breath after another. He turns and looks at me. I expect him to say something but he just stares. After several long seconds, he shakes his head and turns back to the car.

  “Hey.”

  He turns back to me.

  “Now what?”

  He shrugs. “Nothing. It’s over.”

  “What about Ashley?”

  “What about her?”

  “They’re going to kill her.”

  “No they won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “Why?”

  Eli opens the driver’s door. “We should go.”

  “Where?”

  “Away.”

  “And just, what, run for the rest of our lives?”

  “Run. Hide. It’s all the same.”<
br />
  “Everyone is dead now.”

  “No,” Eli says, “not everyone. You and I are still alive.”

  “But for how much longer?”

  Holding the car door open, he gestures for me to get inside.

  I don’t move.

  Smiling, he shakes his head.

  “What?” I ask.

  “It’s remarkable seeing it in you. You want to go back there and fight more of the bad guys, don’t you?”

  I say nothing.

  “And then what are you going to do if you find them?”

  “Kill them.”

  “Are you a killer now? You couldn’t even kill David.”

  “Neither could you.”

  “But I should have. He killed Marta. He deserved to die.”

  “Then why did you let him live?”

  “What do you want me to say, John? That it was a moment of weakness? Fine, it was a moment of weakness. The only reason I’ve survived this long is that I never show mercy to my enemies. If you show mercy, even the slightest bit, it can get you killed. That’s something you need to understand. And David—he betrayed you. He betrayed all of us. He was our enemy. We should have killed him.”

  “So now what?”

  “Now nothing. This was a once and done thing. We only had one shot to make this work and take out Matheson. For some reason I thought we had a chance, but fate had other ideas. Now come on, we can’t wait any longer. There are cameras everywhere. One of them may have spotted us.”

  “Why is she special?”

  “What?”

  “Ashley. Why won’t they kill her?”

  Eli takes another deep breath. He looks like he’s going to say something, but hesitates. His eyes light up.

  “What is it?”

  “The lighter I gave you. What happened to it?”

  “I gave it to Ashley.”

  Immediately he shuts the door and marches to the back of the car. He pops the trunk and starts rummaging first through one duffel bag, then the next.

  “Should I even bother asking what you’re doing?”

  He doesn’t answer, not at first, but when he finds a thick black device, he turns to me and says, “The lighter is more than just a lighter. It’s also a tracker.”

  He opens the device. It’s like a small laptop. A screen on one side, a few buttons on the other. He powers it up and then looks around at our surroundings.

  “We might not be able to get a strong reading because of the concrete.”

  “How accurate is it?”

  “Extremely. Assuming she still has it and that they didn’t search her and empty all her pockets.”

  He presses a few of the buttons. The screen lights up. At first nothing appears on it until lines begin to waver and solidify. Soon it shows a map of the entire United States. Then, quickly, the picture shifts as it begins to zoom into the New England section of the country. It keeps zooming until it shows Milford.

  “I’ll need to zoom back out.”

  “This is GPS?”

  “Yes. In fact ... ah, here we go.”

  On screen a red blinking dot has appeared.

  “Where is it headed?”

  “South.”

  “How far away?”

  “At least ten miles from our current location.” Eli steps back and slams the trunk. The device in hand, he starts for the driver’s door. “Let’s go.”

  I don’t move.

  He opens his door and looks at me. “What’s wrong now?”

  “Ashley,” I say. “You don’t really want to save her.”

  I don’t form it as a question, so it’s not surprising when he doesn’t answer.

  “This is just a second chance to get to Matheson. This is just another way to continue your ... mission.”

  Eli blinks down at the device. He sets it inside the car and then places his arms on the hood.

  “What do you want me to say, John? That I’m a bastard? That I was a shitty father? We already went through this once. If you want to hate me, hate me. At this point I don’t care. I have one purpose right now, and that’s getting to Matheson. And if tracking Ashley to wherever the hell they’re taking her gets me to Matheson, then so be it.”

  “Even if it means getting her killed?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “What about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “If I got killed, would you even give a shit?”

  Again he gives no response.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. That’s why you gave me that lighter, isn’t it? Not to try to keep me safe. You gave it to me so if I got taken by these assholes you could find me. Only you didn’t care about actually saving me if that happened. I was just a means to an end. We all were.”

  Eli takes a deep breath, pushing off the car. “Five minutes ago you were ready to go back to the hospital to kick some ass. Now listen to yourself.”

  I say nothing.

  “You want to keep making me out to be the villain, fine. Ignore the fact that if it wasn’t for me, you and your brothers and sisters would have ended up as soldiers in this nameless war. And if not soldiers, then something worse. It’s because of me you all got a different life. It’s because of me you all had the chance to make something of yourselves. And you know what? Your brothers and sisters did. They did incredible things. But you”—he shakes his head in disgust—“what did you ever do besides just skate by all your life?”

  I say nothing.

  “I’ll be the bad guy if that’s what makes you happy. If that’s what you need to keep kidding yourself you didn’t waste your life. Blame it on your old man, that’s fine. Why else did you think I gave you such a hard time when you kept asking for money? I expected more out of you. Especially with your advantage.”

  “What advantage?”

  Eli starts to answer, but then something catches his attention. He leans down into the car, comes back up with the device.

  “Oh shit.”

  “What?”

  “I think I know where they’re going.”

  Without a word I start toward the passenger door and climb inside. Eli hands me the device. On the screen I watch the red blinking dot move farther and farther away from our location.

  “So tell me,” I say. “Why are you so certain they won’t kill her?”

  He starts the engine, lets it idle for a couple long seconds, then offers up a sad, distant smile. “You mean you haven’t figured that out by now?”

  fifty-two

  The first thing Ashley became aware of was the smell. It smelled like ... home. Not her home home—where she grew up as a girl, where she played with her dolls and stuffed animals—but her summer home. They had the same kind of smell—that perpetual familial scent—only this was slightly different. It smelled ... like the ocean.

  She opened her eyes.

  It was dark. The curtains were closed. Hardly any light streamed in through the slits.

  She was lying in bed—her bed, she realized a second later, noticing the pictures on the walls, the bedside table, even the white-painted dresser.

  This was her summer home, or rather her parents’ summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. Growing up, Ashley had come here every summer, sometimes during the off season too for one event or another, and this had always been her bedroom, back when she was a little girl and even until recently when she visited her parents and stayed for a couple days.

  But ... no, that couldn’t be right. She couldn’t be here. Not right now, not after everything that had just happened.

  A comforter was covering her, keeping her warm. She pushed it off and slowly sat up. At once her head pulsed with pain and she had to close her eyes, stop moving for a couple of seconds until the uneasiness subsided. On the bedside table was a tray with a soup bowl. The bowl was empty but she could still smell chicken noodle soup. Campbell’s, most likely, the only soup her mother trusted to fight a cold. A few saltines lay beside the soup bowl.

  Feeling confident
that her head wouldn’t throb again, she swung her feet out from under the sheets and onto the floor. Her feet were bare. She was, however, wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt.

  She stood, just as slowly, and shuffled over to the window. She pushed the curtain aside. Water lapped away down by the sand. The light was fading—the sun almost set—but she could just make out Nantucket across the sound.

  Well, that settled it. This was her summer home. But what was she doing here?

  She went to the door and opened it as quietly as she could. She thought she remembered it squeaking at some point, but the door swung open without sound. She stepped out into the hallway. Here framed pictures lined the walls. Pictures of Ashley and her parents. Pictures of just her parents. Pictures of her father with important people—celebrities, politicians, even the first President Bush.

  She tiptoed down the hallway, then down the stairs, taking them slowly, quietly, not wanting to make the slightest noise. The pain had faded, but her head still pounded. It was like she was hungover, only she couldn’t remember having anything to drink. What she did remember, though ...

  “Ashley, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  She blinked. Her mother stood in the kitchen by the stove, stirring something in a pot. Her mother was smiling at her, waiting for a response, but when none was forthcoming the smile faded.

  “Ashley? Are you feeling better? If you’re not, maybe you should go back to bed.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “How did you get here?” Her mother looked confused. “Why, you came here with us. We drove up yesterday. Then you came down with the flu, and ...” Her mother’s voice trailed away, worry filling her face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Ashley shuffled farther into the kitchen. She pulled out one of the stools from the counter, carefully lowered herself down onto the cushioned seat.

  “Oh dear.” Her mother leaned forward and touched the back of her hand to Ashley’s forehead. “You still feel warm. Maybe you should lie back down.”