OH GOD,” SAID ELANA. She was curled up, still hoarse from the cloth gag. “God.”
“Elana,” I said. “Elana, look at me. Get up on your knees. Now.” She started moving, but I wasn’t sure if she’d really heard. I bent my legs and planted my boots on the cement floor. The zip-tie bands squeezed into my thighs.
She focused on me. Her eyes seemed clear of the effects of the drug, but there were bags of exhaustion underneath.
I tilted my head toward the man on the ground. “Is he dead?”
“N-No.” She’d gotten herself onto one side, but it was too precarious and she fell back. “They gave him a shot. I saw it.”
“Wake him up. Hurt him, if you have to.” She started squirming his way, like a worm.
I pushed hard with my feet. Harder. My boots had traction, and the leg of the worktable ground into my spine as I pushed with all my strength. I could leg-press a thousand pounds. Sprint like a motherfucker. Maybe I could tip the table. Break the four-by-four leg off. Anything.
Nothing. The table might have been bolted to the wall, for all it moved.
Elana made it to the man in the coveralls. She shouted in his ear. Bit him on the cheek.
“He’s too far gone,” she called.
“Then you’ll have to get on your feet. Find something on the table that can cut me loose.”
“He’s got a little screwdriver. In his chest pocket.”
“Grab it.”
She went to work with her nose and chin. No whining. No delay. A smart girl in a tight situation. She worked a tiny Phillips head out of the boathouse worker’s pocket, got its yellow plastic handle in her teeth, and started worming her way back.
Elana used my legs as a step to get onto her knees, her back toward me. Her hands were close to my chest. She dropped the screwdriver onto my stomach and got it into her hands.
“Start punching holes in the tape,” I said. “Don’t worry about aiming. As many as you can, as fast as you can.”
It took a bunch of attempts before she got into a rhythm. The screwdriver’s point jabbed my bicep and chest muscles a dozen times, and a dozen more, the pain welcome as each tiny dot appeared in the tape.
I leaned forward, hard as I could, like I was trying to hoist the entire table onto my back. I felt a strand of the tape pop. Another.
“Keep going,” I tried to say, and all at once the tape tore and I fell clumsily on my side.
I twisted up onto my forehead and got my knees underneath me. I took one practice bounce, kneecaps banging hard into the floor, and with the next one jumped up onto my feet. I leaned against the table to stay upright and see what it held.
A claw hammer, with two more screwdrivers and a bunch of painting supplies. Blunt pliers and bits of wire left over from Reuben making the packet bomb. Nothing that would cut the thick plastic of the zip ties. There was a metal toolbox, closed but lid unlatched. I craned way over and used my head to knock it to the floor. It spilled its contents with a jangling crash.
Just tubes and soldering bits and pieces and a small propane torch with pistol grip and blue fuel cylinder, probably for tiny welding jobs on portholes and copper pipes. No utility knives or box cutters.
Oh, shit.
I knew what I had to do.
I fell to my knees and worked my way over to the torch. Got the nozzle between my fingers and hopped awkwardly back to Elana.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Stay right there,” I said. “Lean against the table.”
I worked the fuel cylinder of the torch in between her lower legs, just above her bound ankles. The brass nozzle pointed outward. It looked like a snout of a cartoon character, puckered up for a kiss.
“Hold very still. And don’t look,” I said. “Jesus.”
“Are you laughing?” said Elana.
“Nervous response.” I turned and felt blindly until I got the pistol grip handle between my hands. It was clumsy. The trigger was under my ring finger and pinky. I had to squeeze as hard as I could. Squeeze click. Squeeze click. Click Whump as the flame started, singeing the hairs on my forearm. It settled into a steady, sibilant breath.
I took two long, slow breaths of my own. Made my mind go somewhere else, where what was about to happen was just a picture on a television screen seen from far away.
This was really going to hurt.
I leaned backward. My wrists dipped toward the torch. Its flame licked my hand and I matched the torch’s hiss as I got the thick plastic of the zip tie into the right spot. Was it melting? It was all by feel, I couldn’t see behind me. The heat on my wrists went from bearable to the instant horror of someone sawing my hands off with hacksaws. I pulled against the zip tie, muscles popping, away from the flame. Burning plastic dripped down onto my fingers. I might have screamed. Fall backward, tip over the torch, and Elana or I or both of us could be ablaze in an instant.
Then my hands flew apart, just as far as the strap around my elbows would allow. I gasped and choked with the immediate respite. I wanted to throw myself into the cold water of the boathouse. Drowning would be an afterthought.
“Van,” Elana was saying. I nodded shakily. We weren’t safe yet.
With my hands unbound, I picked up the torch and began to cut Elana’s hands and elbows free. She got singed, even with me keeping the flame away from her skin, but she only showed it in clenched teeth and the occasional curse. After that, the rest of the cursed plastic ties were easy.
There was no phone in the boathouse, and the only boat in the wide slip was a dinghy with oars. Not even an outboard.
“Can you row?” I said to Elana.
“I guess. But you—”
“No.” There wasn’t time for help to get here. Kasym might be preparing to set off the shaped charges right now. The big blast would follow moments later. Uncontained, with the winds in the worst possible direction, I could even envision the blaze reaching the skyscrapers of downtown. There weren’t enough firefighters in the state to stop it, once it got momentum.
The boathouse worker was still out cold. I picked him up and set him in the dinghy.
Elana climbed in and began fumbling with the oars. “Van, you don’t have to stay.”
I untied the lines and pulled the dinghy to the mouth of the boathouse and pointed its bow towards the Seattle skyline.
“Get to the opposite shore. You go to the first person you see. Forget explaining the truth. Tell them this guy’s your dad and he’s had a heart attack. Get their phone, and call 911 and say the words bomb and Jurlee Petroleum as quick as you can. Fill in the rest after. Understand?”
She did. Her face was pale and stricken and fierce around the cat-green eyes.
Before I ran out of the boathouse, I grabbed the claw hammer off the worktable. Better than nothing.