Lying on the stretcher, the pain was unbearable.
It was worse on his feet.
He made it through the gleaming labs to a door that took him to a cool, medieval basement of stone walls and dimly lit corridors. Along the way he found a broken ax handle and used it as a cane. He hobbled up a run of stone stairs, and at the top, he unlatched a heavy wooden door and slowly pushed it open.
He was in a long hallway.
He had to rest.
The dizziness he felt climbing the stairs was getting worse. He might have to throw up.
His lack of depth perception wasn’t helping. In the distance, he made out faint voices and as he crept closer he saw a kitchen. A little further down the hall, there was a large cabinet filled with crockery and he used it for cover.
He heard Ferrol in English, say, “No, keep them all on the roof.”
Gunar replied, “Take three days for more men. Till then, don’t have enough guys for big raid.”
“We don’t know if a raid is coming. We don’t know if Handler told anyone where he was going.”
“Okay. Getting dark now. Need to bring guys night-vision goggles.”
“I sent the servants away for the night. I’ll be upstairs. I’ll question Handler again in a couple of hours.”
Footsteps headed in opposite directions.
He waited until both sets had faded away, peered into the empty kitchen, then took another wider, grander corridor, this one lined with oil paintings and tapestries, until he was in a huge entrance hall with a floor of yellow and black tiles and a suit of medieval armor. A massive stone staircase swept to the next floor.
He almost fell on slippery tiles smeared with mopped blood and he wondered if he had anything to do with it. By the door, a shotgun stood on its stock. He traded his ax handle and when he picked it up, it seemed vaguely familiar. There was at least one shell visible behind the receiver shell-latch.
He started up the stairs, using the weapon to steady himself.
He reached a wide hallway carpeted with a long oriental runner that dampened his footfalls. There were closed doors on either side of the hall, but further along, there was an open one. Drawing closer, he heard a TV.
Ferrol came out of his bathroom, lay on his bed, and reached for the tablet on the bedspread. He glanced at the white-room feed. The girls were on their beds. He looked closer and spread his fingers to increase the magnification. Handler’s stretcher was empty.
He sprang up and grabbed the walkie-talkie on his desk.
“Gunar! Handler’s escaped! Get down here!”
Marcus turned the shotgun from a walking stick back into a weapon.
He heard Gunar’s reply come through. “Coming, boss,” followed by, “Fuck! Choppers!”
At the doorway, Marcus saw sheer curtains billowing at the open windows. The evening breeze carried the sound of rotor blades.
*
Gunar grabbed a rifle with a night-vision scope and scanned the skies.
He acquired the lead helicopter in his sights, a Eurocopter Tigre emblazoned with the black and gold serpent and warbird of the Grupo Especial de Operaciones.
Gunar shouted to his men in Slovakian, “Engage!”
The helicopter opened up on the castle ramparts with its nose-mounted thirty-millimeter turret.
The weapons officer had an excellent screen-view of Gunar’s blond head poking through a crenellation and directed a long burst into it.
*
At the first volley, Ferrol ducked away from the window.
The heavy automatic fire overhead was deafening.
Marcus shouted over it, “Looks like I did tell someone I was here.”
Ferrol turned looking like a trapped animal. His wild eyes darted about and settled on the kerosene lamp on his desk.
“Put it down,” Marcus shouted. It was hard keeping his balance. His headache made him want to scream.
Ferrol didn’t put it down. He poured kerosene over his head and splashed the rest on his sweater. Then he grabbed a butane lighter.
“Don’t do it!” Marcus yelled.
Ferrol backed toward his bathroom door.
The firing stopped outside.
Marcus could hear helicopters landing.
Ferrol said, “My parents died in this room, many years ago. They died by fire. Since then, I’ve had a mortal fear of fire and a mortal fear of death. I thought I could cheat death. I was wrong.”
“Put the lighter down.”
“My notebooks,” Ferrol said. “At least my work will live forever.”
He flicked the lighter and erupted in a fireball.
As he fell backwards into the bathroom, Marcus heard him screaming.
“The beast! The beast! The final beast!”
Marcus dropped the shotgun and tried to pull the bedspread off to suffocate the flames.
But, as he was tugging at the heavy fabric, he felt an explosion go off inside his head.
*
At a great distance, Marcus heard a familiar voice.
“My friend, can you hear me? Please, can you hear me?”
Opening his unbandaged eye felt like the hardest thing he had ever done. It wanted to stay shut, to keep him cloaked in darkness. He was lying on a rug. His bandage was soaked through. Blood was pouring down his shoulder.
“Roberto,” he said, weakly. “Did I tell you I was here?”
“Yes, of course. If only I could have arrived sooner. My God, look at you.”
“Give me a cigarette.”
Lumaga helped him sit against the bed. He lit a cigarette for him and put it between his lips.
A Spanish GEO officer emerged from the bathroom and gave Lumaga a thumbs-down.
“That’s Ferrol Gaytan in there?” Lumaga asked.
Marcus didn’t answer. He closed his eye and in the darkness, he saw someone standing in the distance.
“Marcus, please stay with me!” Lumaga said.
The cigarette dropped away. “The girls are in the basement,” he whispered. “It’s all in the notebooks.”
Something curious was happening. As it got darker and darker, the figure standing there got brighter and brighter until Marcus recognized her.
“Alice,” he said in a voice that Lumaga couldn’t hear. “I wasn’t there for you, but you’re here for me.”