by Neal Martin
Black slid down the wall to the floor just as Edger came up beside him. "Fucking bitch stabbed me," he said, his hands holding his side just below his body armour.
He was bleeding badly. Given the length of the knife that had stabbed him, his insides were probably sliced to pieces. "Let me see," Edger said, setting his gun on the floor and crouching down to check out the wound. "I can patch it up, stop most of the blood flow, but it'll only be temporary. You need a hospital, Black."
Black laughed, almost choking. "Are you fucking kidding me? A hospital?" He laughed again. "Just cover it up. I need to get those kids out of here. That bitch has a key card on her." He looked over at the dead woman, her white coat stained with blood from the bullet wounds Edger put in her. "Never even seen her coming."
"Hold on, Black."
Edger went inside one of the labs and searched around until he found a first aid kit, then he carried the large plastic box out into the corridor. After helping Black remove his bullet proof vest, Edger spent the next five minutes doing his best to patch up the gaping wound in Black's side. All he could do was put a thick surgical pad over the wound and tape it in place. Within seconds of applying it, the white surgical pad turned red as the blood continued to ooze from the deep hole.
"What's the verdict, doc?" Black's eyes were half closed as he struggled to remain conscious.
You have less than hour before you bleed out and die.
"I've seen worse. Can you stand?"
Black snorted weakly. "I'll try."
Edger helped the ex-cop get to his feet as Black held on to him, grunting in pain. "Try to keep pressure on the wound."
"You can let me go. I'm fine."
When Edger stopped holding him up, Black nearly collapsed to the floor again, only the wall holding him up. Edger waited a moment to make sure Black was okay to stand. Then he went to the dead woman on the floor next to them, her white coat now stained red from the blood of her bullet wounds. The woman was in her early twenties, pretty before Edger shot her in the head. He wondered if Mason had programmed the girl the way he did with Declan, ordering the girl to kill anyone who came near the labs. Did Mason also kidnap this girl from somewhere, force her to help him with his fiendish experiments? Either way, no one controlled the girl now. Edger plucked the key card from of her white coat and handed it to Black, who received it with a bloody hand.
"Get all those kids out," he said to the ex-cop.
Black nodded and winced at the same time. "What are…you going to do?"
Edger took one of the plastic explosive devices out of the bag he still had around him. "I'm going to set these. Blow this whole fucking house up."
"How much time do I have?"
Not long.
"I'll set them for thirty minutes. That should give you enough time to get the kids and yourself clear, and for me to find Mason."
"What…what will you do when you find him?"
"What do you think? I'm going to kill him."
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Edger planted the explosives at either end of the basement. When they went off, they would decimate the foundations of the building, and the whole house would collapse into rubble, reducing Mason's lair and any traces of the so-called Red Falcon Country Club to rubble.
After setting the second Semtex device, Edger came back down the corridor where Black still was. He was shuffling along, holding his side as he used the key card to open all the doors to the rooms that held the captive children. A few of the kids had already come out of their cells, looking shell shocked and afraid. They reminded Edger of people who had barely survived a bomb blast intact.
"I don't know what's been done to these kids," Black said, his face a mask of pain as he held one bloody hand to his side. "But they don't know whether they're coming or going. It's a job just to get them out of these rooms."
Edger looked at one young girl, standing with her back pressed against the wall, eyeing him fearfully like he was about to hurt her. The girl couldn't have been any older than ten.
How the fuck could people do this to kids?
He wanted to go to the girl, try to comfort her somehow, but he didn't have time. The bombs were set and due to go off in less than thirty minutes. His only objective now was to find Mason, the real source of the little girl's pain, and take him out.
"You okay, Black?" he asked, walking up to the other man.
"Never better." Black had a rictus grin on his pale face. A trickle of blood ran out of his mouth. "Just go and get that sicko Mason. I'll get these kids to safety."
The two men stood looking at each other for a moment. Edger doubted he would ever see Black alive again. "Thanks, Paul. I don't care if you burnt your badge. You're still a cop, and a damned good one."
"You're a good soldier yourself, Harry. Look after that daughter of yours, right?"
"I will."
They shook hands, then Edger ran down the corridor towards the stairs.
When he got inside the main house again, Edger checked his watch. After setting the first bomb, he had started a countdown. According to the timer on his watch, he had twenty-three minutes to find Mason, kill him, and then get clear of the house. As he moved down the narrow corridor towards the stairs, he thought that maybe he should have given himself more time before the bombs went off. It was a big house. Mason could be anywhere.
If the man was even still here.
There was a strong possibility that he had left the estate altogether at some point.
But Edger didn't think so. Despite the massive security breach, this was still Mason's home, his base of operations, and he wasn't going to abandon it that easily. Besides that, Mason was probably arrogant enough to want to meet the man he knew was coming after him.
Edger was happy to oblige him on that front.
As he moved up the wide staircase, Edger ejected the magazine from his Beretta and slid in a fresh one, chambering a round immediately after. When he reached the end of the staircase, he stood on the landing and looked left and right. There were a number of rooms on either side of the landing, but there didn't appear to be any staircase leading up to the top floor. Edger thought for a moment. If there was no staircase, then there must be some other way to get up there, like a lift or something.
He turned right and headed down the hallway, stopping when he heard one of the doors opening.
A man in a black suit came walking out of the room, a gun in his hand, not seeing Edger until it was too late. Edger shot the man in the gut. The guard cried out as he fell to the floor, a red stain flowering out in his white shirt.
"Don't fucking move!" Edger shouted as he ran towards the fallen guard. The guard still held his gun loosely in his hand. Edger stamped on the man's wrist, then used his other foot to kick the gun away. He stood over the injured guard, pointing the Beretta down at his face. "Where's Mason?"
The guard's face was a mask of pain from the gut shot. Edger had seen guys shot in the gut before. It was one of the most painful deaths a man could have. The guard pointed down the hallway with a bloody hand. "Around the corner…the elevator…" he gasped.
Edger stared down at him. He was just a young guy in his mid-twenties. Hard to tell if he was under Mason's control, or whether he was just a man doing a job. Edger debated for a second, then shot him in the head. He couldn't afford mercy.
He headed down the end of the hallway, then turned right into another, much shorter hallway. No doors. Just a lead up to an elevator. As he hit the call button on the elevator, he checked his watch. Less than twenty minutes before the bombs went off.
The elevator door opened and he stepped inside. There were four buttons to choose from on the control panel. He hit the button marked "3" and the elevator kicked into gear then stopped immediately afterwards. He pressed the button again. "Come on, for fucks sake!"
No matter how many times he pressed the button, the elevator didn't start moving.
Then the acrid smell hit his nostrils. Sharp, sulfurous. He lo
oked up to see a yellowish gas leaking from the air vent in the elevator. By the time he got a chance to cover his mouth, he had already inhaled too much of the gas.
His head began to spin and his vision started to blur. Then his balance went, and his legs gave way underneath him as he crashed to the floor.
The last thing he remembered before he blacked out was the elevator jerking to life and beginning to move upwards.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Most of the kids were understandably confused about what was going on. Naked and afraid, quivering like abused dogs in their cages, many of them crawled away from Black as he tried to coax them out of the rooms they were being held captive in. God knows what was done to them, what physical and mental abuse they had suffered at the hands of Mason and his mind controlled accomplices. Black had read about such orchestrated abuse before, mostly in connection with secret government programs in America, programs such as MK-ULTRA, in which the CIA researched mind control techniques. On a darker level, there was also the institutionalised mind control of groups like the Illuminati, who apparently secretly controlled the whole damn world. Whether that was true or not, the techniques they supposedly used to brainwash their subjects bore a remarkable similarity to the techniques being used by Mason. The idea was to physically and mentally abuse the subject, often sexually, in order to create a split in their mind. Once that split occurred, that person's mind became highly susceptible to outside control. You could, in effect, create a whole new personality for that person, multiple personalities in fact. Black used to think this was all the fevered imaginings of conspiracy theorists, but now that he had seen the evidence first hand, he no longer believed that. The shit was real. Edger's brother was proof of that. Black could only assume that the children he was working on setting free were due to be used as puppets by Mason, or else sold to the highest bidder for use as slaves, which wouldn't be unheard of either.
Either way, Black's only concern was getting the children out. Every one of them seemed so damaged and traumatised, he couldn't help wondering if it wouldn't be more humane to let them die in the coming bomb blast. It would be a quick death. At least they wouldn't have to suffer the memory of their abuse for the rest of their lives, if they could even have a life after everything that had been done to them.
Despite his misgivings, he still felt duty bound to at least try and save the children. Edger was right about him. He was still a cop, for better or worse. His job was to protect, not to kill.
Even if he was going to die himself soon.
As more and more of his lifeblood leaked out of him, he made peace with the fact that he was never making it out of the house alive. He was dead already. All he had to do was get the children out, and then he could lie down and die. His work would be over finally.
It took him ten minutes to coax all the children out of their cells. Over a dozen of them stood around in the corridor, the strip lights above them still blinking on and off, making the pale skinned kids—many of them covered in fresh blood or their own filth—look like a gathering of ghouls, with the slow moving and bleeding Black as their leader.
The blood flowing from the wound in his side was unrelenting. He didn't know how many pints he had lost, but it felt like most of the blood had been drained from his body, leaving him light headed and cold. His lungs too, as if in response to the shutting down of his body, began to burn in his chest, constricting his airflow so that he gasped instead of breathed.
The children stood around in the corridor like frightened lambs, wordless and shaking, staring fearfully at Black and at each other, probably thinking they were about to be subjected to more abuse.
"Alright," Black gasped, trying to keep his voice calm. "We're all going to go now. We're going to leave this place. I'm going to set you all free."
Harrowed eyes stared back at him.
He shuffled around them like a bloody shepherd, rounding them all into one group and moving them along the corridor to the stairs leading up to the main part of the house. They all gathered at the entrance, too frightened to go any further.
"Keep going." Half doubled over, Black tried to usher them up the stairs, but the children didn't move.
Shit.
There was simply no time to be gentle with them. He had to get them out of the house before the bombs went off.
"Move!" he shouted, choking on his own blood for a moment. "Go now! Fucking move!"
A few of the children screamed, but slowly but surely, they began to do as they were told and move up the stairs.
"That's it. That's good. Everything's going to be fine. Keep going."
As the last of the children began to move up the stairs, Black wasn't sure if he could make it himself. It was all he could do to stay standing. He just wanted to rest somewhere, badly.
Don't stop now. At least do something to make your daughter's proud for once.
Gasping for breath, clutching his injured side, he forced himself to climb the stairs, every single step agonising, the pain so white hot and blinding he nearly collapsed several times, before he finally made it up all the stairs to see the children hanging around in the massive foyer. They were all grouped together now like a flock of spooked sheep, which was good, because it made it easier to move them.
The front doors of the house were wide open. The bodies of the two guards Black and Edger had shot earlier lay on the floor near the doors, seeping blood onto the red and black tiles.
Black made a weak motion with his hand. "Go! Out…out the doors…"
A few of the kids looked at the doors, and their faces became even more frightened, like they couldn't face going back into the world again.
One last push. Get them all out.
He somehow managed to summon what little energy he had left to walk down the narrow hallway, and into the foyer, where he goaded the children towards the doors, ushering them all out into the cold night air. The air itself seemed to shake them all out their stupors a bit, and they became somewhat more animated. A few of them broke from the group and ran down the steps and away from the house.
"Follow them," Black said, pointing to the runners. "Go!"
The rest began to back away from the doors, turning their backs as they went down the steps and moved away from the house.
All except one little girl. She must have been no older than ten or eleven, with long dirty red hair, and ugly welts all over her body, like someone had been at her with a strap or a belt. Her large blue eyes stared back at Black just as he finally collapsed to the floor.
It felt like he blacked out for a moment. When he opened his eyes, the girl was standing over him. "Come with us," she said in a small voice.
Black could barely speak. He smiled up at the girl, and in his mind she took on the form of his daughter, Jessica. "I love you," he breathed, before he momentarily blacked out again.
When he opened his eyes next, the girl was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Edger awoke to find himself inside a large room that had red carpet on the floor. Within a few seconds, he worked out he was slumped on a leather sofa. He couldn't move his arms, and he soon realised they were bound behind his back. His ankles were also tied together. There was a dull ache in his skull, and he groaned as he positioned himself up straight.
"Daddy?"
Snapping his head to the side, Edger was shocked to see his daughter sitting beside him on the sofa, tears running down her cheeks, dressed in the same clothes he had last seen her in. "Kaitlin?" he said, blinking hard just in case he was imagining her. An after effect of the gas used to render him unconscious in the lift perhaps?
When Kaitlin threw her arms around him, he knew there was no doubt. She was there with him.
"Mr Edger," said a voice from behind him. "I'm glad you're awake. I was beginning to think I used too much gas."
Edger looked over his shoulder just as Gabriel Mason walked around to face him. The tall professor—now inexplicably appearing much younger than he did while standi
ng on the steps at the front of the house earlier—stood in front of him. Mason was dressed in a dark brown three piece suit and yellow bow tie. He smiled at Edger, then at Kaitlin, then back to Edger again. "Mason what's—"
A thought prevented Edger from finishing his sentence.
The bombs.
"How long?" he asked, his heart banging hard against his chest.
Mason frowned. "How long what, Mr Edger?"
"How long have I been out?"
"About five minutes. The effects of the gas I used don't last long."
Five minutes. That meant there was less than fifteen minutes before the bombs went off.
Jesus Christ. Kaitlin…
"Why is she here?"
"She's been here for a while now," Mason said. "My men must have just missed you at the house in Lisburn. They went there to kill you. When they saw you were gone, they took the girl instead."
Edger looked at his daughter. "Are you okay, Kaitlin?"
Kaitlin nodded, her face pale and drawn, but she seemed okay under the circumstances. "They shot Donna."
Edger shut his eyes.
No.
"Not before she shot one of my men, though," Mason said before moving out of sight for a moment. Edger used the opportunity to check his bonds. Cable ties. Unbreakable unless cut. He looked at Kaitlin, who was sitting close beside him, her head resting against his arm.
"There's a knife strapped to my leg," he whispered to her.
Kaitlin didn't move, but he felt her head nod against his arm.
When Mason reappeared, he had a drink in his hand as he sat down in an armchair facing the sofa, crossing his long legs and staring at Edger with steely blue eyes. Then he reached inside his jacket and took out a pistol, an old German Walther 9mm, and placed the pistol on the arm of the chair.
