One Rule - No Rules

by Lawrence Ambrose

  "Unless she's psychic, she won't have a clue where we are."

  "Funny that she didn't give her guy backup instead of waiting outside the airport," said the redhead. "If it were me, I would've had his back."

  "And when they captured him, he just went along meekly." Rick was stroking his chiseled chin. "He was carrying two guns, but never reached for them while he was being chased down."

  "Maybe he wanted to be captured?"

  Rick was no longer smiling. His eyes narrowed in thought. He stood suddenly, drawing a cell phone from beneath his windbreaker. Louis heard ringing, and then a man with a vaguely British accent on voicemail.

  "Just checking in," Rick spoke into the phone. He ended the call, frowning.

  "He's probably in the middle of shit," said one of the men, a crew cut blond, the largest and most obviously muscular of the group.

  Rick shook his head. "He knows I wouldn't call unless it was important. He'd take it unless he really was in the middle of shit."

  He noted Louis sitting there trying not to look pleased or unsurprised.

  "What?" Rick asked. "You're thinking something."

  "I guess it's just" – Louis searched frantically for something that would satisfy them – "Thalma and her, uh, partner are really good at what they do."

  "Your point?"

  "You were saying her partner's going to be killed, but I don't see that happening so easily."

  Seeing the cool menace in Rick and his partners' eyes, Louis wondered if he'd seriously misstepped.

  "What's he going to do," Rick drawled, "kill everyone onboard and take over the plane?"

  Louis chewed on the inside of his cheek, not meeting the larger man's eyes. Several of the men were trading looks. The silence hung on long enough to become ominous.

  "He travels with four topnotch men," said Rick. "Plus Murphy and the pilot. They would've disarmed him. Who's gonna walk into that thinking they'll take everyone down?"

  "Maybe the WASP chick got aboard, too," said Roger. "Stowed away in the luggage compartment or something."

  Louis watched the worry spread among the men and struggled not to smile. Thalma wouldn't let herself be taken aboard if she wasn't confident she'd turn the tables on her captors. The fact that Mr. Murphy wasn't replying was cause for optimism.

  "They take over the plane, and then what?" the blond goliath asked. "What's the point? If they wanted to take them out, they didn't need to get into the plane."

  Rick cast a suspicious eye on Louis. "Did she say that was the plan?"

  "No, but I can see her and her partner doing something like that."

  "I'm with Alec," said Roger. "I don't see the frickin' point. And a fight on a plane with guns would turn messy real quick. Doesn't make sense tactically."

  "We're just spinning our wheels," Rick grumbled. "We'll wait to hear from Murphy. If we don't, we'll call up the ladder."

  Louis tried to imagine what was happening or had happened on the plane. It seemed incredibly risky to him. Thalma might be incredibly strong – sure, she could throw him around like a rag doll – but then so could these guys. Never having seen her in actual combat, he really couldn't say how she'd fare against men like these. He felt some of his faith slipping.

  "Fuck it," said Rick. "Let's have some beer and pizza and chill the fuck out."

  The tension in the room dropped a notch. The men uncrossed their arms and dropped their thousand-yard stares. They dispensed beer and pizza, and Louis was happy to get a bottle of Bud and a slice of pizza. If he was going to die, he might as well have a buzz on and a full stomach.

  "So," Louis said, wondering if he was making a mistake opening his mouth. "Does this mean you're not going to torture me anymore?"

  "Come on." Rick affected a hurt expression. "Everyone knows waterboarding isn't torture."

  Louis's smile didn't quite achieve lift-off.

  "We all know you're no operator," said Rick. "You're just a neo-hippie dude caught in the middle. You don't know shit about who your girlfriend works for. No reason why she should tell you. Knowing anything about her boss could get you killed. You're just her longhaired little boy toy."

  "Then why did you waterboard me?" Despite his better judgment, anger thickened Louis's voice. "Just for the fun of it?"

  "Easy, boy." Behind his smile, a note of warning entered Rick's voice. "This is business, not fun."

  "Just following orders?" Louis grimaced inwardly. Can't help yourself, can you?

  "Be careful." Rick's smile had disappeared.

  "Is there anything you wouldn't do, if it was an order?"

  Louis didn't see the hand that struck him. He registered his head slamming into the couch and the whap of flesh striking flesh. The flickering light and vertigo were fuzzy afterthoughts.

  "Any other questions?" Rick asked when the room stabilized.

  Louis rubbed his jaw. "I don't think so."

  "Glad to hear it. But for the record, no, we're not zombie killers who mindlessly follow orders. We're all former U.S. Military, and we've spent years fighting so that people like you are free to have your own opinions, wear your hair like a girl's, and think you're smarter and better than everyone else." He spoke in a harsh hiss. "The world is full of self-righteous, soft, mushy-headed sheep like you, Louis. But if you want to be a wolf, you need to join a pack – a powerful pack - because big wolves eat lone wolves."

  It sounded like so much horseshit to Louis, but he didn't dare to comment. A little logic might dismember his self-serving crap, but it might also get him dismembered. As far as big wolves eating lone wolves, he thought, well, let's see how well they do trying to eat Thalma Engstrom.

  As they cleared away the pizza, Rick's cell rang. He muttered a curse under his breath when he saw the number.

  "Yes, sir," he answered. A grim expression grew on his face as he listened. "Understood, sir."

  He closed his cell, favoring Louis and then the others with a dark gaze.

  "That was McPhail," he said. "He just learned that the Cessna crashed."

  After a few moments of stunned silence, Roger asked, "Any survivors?"

  "They don't know yet. But the fact that it blew into pieces in a field doesn't look good."

  Louis doubled over, holding his stomach as the pizza and beer threatened to come up. No, he thought. She survived. It would take more than a little plane crash to kill Thalma.

  "We have orders to ransack the farm," said Rick. "Take everything of value and bring it to Headquarters."

  "What about the Engstrom bitch?" the giant blond, Alec asked. "We don't know where she is."

  "If we see her, we kill her. No time for interrogation. McPhail wants us out of here ASAP, before our opponents can mount a counter-operation."

  The men nodded grimly. Louis lowered his head, a shudder of self-survival edging through his grief.

  "Are you going to kill me?" he asked.

  "I have no orders for that," said Rick. "You help us unlock the treasures at your place, and you just might get to walk away from this."

  Louis made himself nod. He didn't believe the asshole for a second, but the longer he stalled them the better his slim chances. Thalma is alive, he told himself. She'll be coming home.

  Chapter 10

  "WE COULD BE WALKING into a firestorm," said Roger as they approached Thalma's driveway.

  "Not with her little friend in hand."

  Rick patted Louis on the head. Louis tried to squirm away, but packed in with three large men in the back seat, there was no place to go. He felt as if he'd been jammed into a testosterone sandwich, hold the deodorant.

  No cars were parked out front, but that didn't mean she wasn't there, Louis thought. No sign of Socrates as they rolled up to the house.

  "Let's check the perimeter," said Rick. "Look for other vehicles."

  "The dog's missing," Roger observed.

  "He could've wandered off after he woke up. Or maybe a neighbor took him."

  "Or maybe she came back and took him h
erself. They could both be in the house."

  "Whatever," snapped Rick. "We'll go in easy, with lover-boy here out front."

  They weaved between the barns and out to the woods before circling back to the front of the house. The men broke out handguns and a trio of M4 assault rifles. Wedged between what Rick called the "Bobsy Twins" – two dark-haired, burly, taciturn men named Bob and Robby who could've been twins – Louis was ushered to the front door with pistols aimed at his head, while the others followed in a narrow file, tracking the house and immediate area with their rifles.

  The front door was locked.

  "We left everything unlocked," said Rick. "That means someone, probably Engstrom, is either inside or has been here."

  Louis felt his spirits lift. The logic was undeniable. Either the door had been locked from the inside or by key, which meant either Thalma was inside now or had used her key, since only he and Thalma had keys to the house.

  "Do you know where we can find a key?" Rick asked him.

  "There should be a spare under that rock by the basement window." He nodded to the window a few yards away.

  "Get it."

  Louis unearthed the key, and they entered, guns swiveling in every direction. The house was silent. Socrates didn't charge out of the shadows to get his big head blown apart. Louis released a half-breath in relief. Thalma could be lurking in ambush somewhere – maybe down in the grow rooms. He wasn't sure how she'd handle the five men – especially with him in the middle – but he trusted she'd find a way.

  "We have your boyfriend," Rick called out.

  He signaled the others to the kitchen and the downstairs study. They split up in pairs to check the two rooms, while he kept his pistol on Louis's back. Another signal sent the men upstairs in a tight, fast-moving column. They returned shortly.

  "The basement," said Rick.

  The men cautiously descended the stairs into the basement.

  Rick moved to the sump pump. "You said this is the gate to the magic kingdom?"

  "Yes."

  With a sigh, Louis switched on the drain motor. He really hated the idea of letting these people into their inner sanctum, despite the bigger issue of his life hanging in the balance. But Thalma's presence was palpable now. Chances were, these men would never share what they saw with another living soul.

  When the water chamber was empty, and Rick ordered him to drop down and show them the way in, Louis saw in a flash his pathway to freedom – as clearly as a red carpet lit by flashing halogen lights. If they let him drop down alone and get through that door, he was gone! They could pound on that four-inch thick stainless steel door for the rest of eternity and barely raise a dent.

  Alas, Robby clambered down with him. Louis had no chance of going through that door alone now. Still, he felt sure that Thalma was lurking somewhere nearby. It was just a matter of time before these arrogant assholes met their unmaker.

  Louis popped the plastic panel and entered the combination. The lights and fan kicked in as he opened the door. He noticed something different right away: a large cloth taped over the fan. To the casual eye it might appear to be a filter, but Louis knew better. What purpose it served didn't come to him immediately.

  The others squeezed into the room behind him. The rows of seedlings seemed to wave to them in the breeze.

  "Bingo," said Roger.

  They fanned out across the room, Robby staying with Louis.

  "No mature plants," Rick observed. "This must be a cloning room."

  "The mature plants are in the next room." Louis had stated that there were only two underground chambers. He didn't doubt they'd figure out there were more, but he hadn't seen any reason to rush their enlightenment.

  "Where's the loot?" Roger asked.

  "There's a safe in the next room," said Louis.

  Rick waved him forward. "Let's go there."

  As Louis headed toward the next door, noting the cloth now fluttering on the fan, a hypothesis started to form. It was kind of a wild idea – he wasn't sure it would even work - but then Thalma could be a bit wild sometimes, despite her often somber demeanor.

  He took his time punching in the door's combination. The lights and fan switched on, and once again a cloth adorned the front of the fan. Louis made a point of trudging between the rows of plants still in their early growth phase. He noticed his attention wandering, distracted by the vibrant greens and the lush, earthen smells. The smells themselves verged on having color – a shade just below his perception. Interesting.

  "Wow," said Alec, turning in a slow circle behind him. "This place is cool. What kind of lights are those, anyway?"

  Hearing those words, and seeing the suddenly dazed smiles on his captors, confirmed Louis's tentative hypothesis: Thalma had seeded both rooms with LSD 35! She'd placed some of the crystal powder on a cloth so that the fan would disperse it throughout the room. And it had worked!

  "Hold on," said Robby. "We've been drugged!"

  "No shit, Sherlock." Rick managed to look both grim and exuberant as he swung his rifle around at the bare steel walls. "Must be in the air supply."

  "We need to fall back or we're gonna get smoked, man," said Roger. "We can't fight like this."

  "Not so fast." Rick pointed to Louis, who had wandered over to the far door. "We still got lover-boy."

  "What's beyond the next door, anyway?" asked Roger.

  As if in reply, the steel door swung outward, and a single arm latched onto Louis and yanked him out of sight.

  "We had lover-boy," Roger laughed.

  Rick raised his M4, but the door had already closed to a mere crack. "Shit!"

  "Gentlemen," Thalma called. "The walls are lined with HE loaded with 6 mm balls. You have ten seconds to place all your weapons in this corner of the room. I'll be watching you with cameras. If any one of you does not comply, you will all die. I'm starting the countdown now."

  The door clinked shut. The men stared at each other. Thalma was calling out the numbers just loud enough to be muffled but clear.

  "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5..."

  With a final exchange of panic-eyed looks, the men rushed as one to the designated corner and threw off their guns as if they were hot coals. They backed away from the gun pile, holding their hands in the air and eyeing the walls.

  On the other side of the door, Thalma, cradling an M-14, pulled Louis into a one-armed embrace.

  "Brilliant," he said.

  "We'll see." She eased him away, her free hand on his face. "Wait here until I make sure they're secured."

  "What are you going to do with them?"

  "I haven't quite figured that part out, yet." She smiled, and then gazed past him to the large, coiled form of her canine companion. "Come on, Socrates. You can help. But behave yourself, unless they try something."

  Louis held her as she tried to leave. "They might have hidden weapons."

  "I know." She kissed his frowning mouth. "I can handle them. I doubt they'll feel much like fighting. Just stay put, okay?"

  In the clone room, Thalma had the five men lie facedown a few feet apart. She had come up with only one idea of controlling the men so that she wouldn't have to kill them. It made her queasy just thinking of it, but she was sure the men would agree that it beat the alternative.

  "If you twitch, I will kill you," she said.

  For her, LSD 35 promoted feelings of peace and a profound sense of connectedness to the world and life in it. She was feeling that right now, but she wasn't about to let it control her. With each experience, she'd felt more in control of herself, and now had little doubt that she could pull the trigger if she had to.

  The men lay passively while she patted them down, keeping a close eye on the others as she searched each man. She located three knives and two ankle pistols. Even high, they hadn't completely lost their soldier's edge.

  She had them rise one at a time. The first one up, a huge blond man, received her rifle's butt on his left kneecap. He dropped, clutching his knee and crying out a hoarse
curse. The others started to rise.

  "Stay down or die!"

  Her voice rang in the steel-walled room. The men slumped back to the floor. She'd picked out the largest and strongest-looking men, which included Rick, who received another dose of knee therapy from the wood stock of her rifle. As he and his partner writhed, cursing, the third man in line crouched on one knee, backing away.

  "Would you rather I shoot you in the leg?" she asked.

  That stopped him. Thalma wasted no time in moving forward and popping his nearest knee.

  "Fucking bitch!" Roger hissed, kneeling to the floor.

  "Now," she said, forcing down the gorge in her stomach, "help your friends upstairs."

  She had Socrates precede them up the stairs. He trotted by the limping men, his dark eyes doting on their every move – itching, Thalma knew, for one of them to step out of line. He hadn't forgotten that they'd shot him with tranquilizer darts the day before. If one of the men tried something, payback would come painfully in a set of powerful, sharp-toothed jaws.

  As the last of the men reached the kitchen at the top of the stairs, the Bobsy Twins made their move. Bob yanked out a drawer and hurled it at her, knives and flatware scattering over the floor. Socrates attacked, seizing his right arm and driving him to the floor. The others snatched up knives and forks or whatever they could grab and launched themselves toward her. Her finger closed on the trigger – she could've killed them all twice over – but at the last instant she thought screw it and started laying them out with the butt of her rifle and heels of her feet instead.

  Then Rick and Alec locked her arms up, slamming her against one wall. She now had a choice between battling for control of her rifle or releasing the rifle and striking her opponents. Overconfident? she wondered, not quite feeling fear – just some healthy concern. As the two large men exerted all their strength, the M-14's barrel began to angle toward her head. The handsome, tanned one's grinning face was so close to hers that his breath tickled her cheeks.

  "Ready to eat some lead, bitch?"

  Now Thalma exerted all her strength. Muscles in her shoulders and arms bunched. She saw surprise and then stunned disbelief in both men's eyes as the rifle barrel stopped and then, ever so slowly, started to reverse course.