34

 

Sledge’s head ached with pain so dominant it seemed his whole existence. Something hard pressed up under his right elbow. Then he realized the hard thing wasn’t pressing up. His arm was pressing down. He was lying on his right arm on top of a hard surface. The heavy jacket didn’t give him much padding. He tried to move the arm, but could not. It was tied to the left arm behind his back. His feet were tied, too, limiting their movement to about twelve inches. His legs lay on the same hard surface as his arm.

Then he remembered. He’d talked his way into Koenraad’s base, tried to stall until the FBI made its raid, hoped to find out what happened to Kristin. He’d made a mess of everything. His threat to give incriminating photos to the FBI hadn’t fazed Koenraad at all.

But if Sledge’s body was lying on something hard, why was his head resting on something soft? And whose soft hand was rubbing his cheek? With an effort, he opened his eyes. The glare of mid-afternoon sun blinded him momentarily and set his head throbbing, but his eyes soon adjusted. They told him his head rested on a thigh. The remainder of that leg, clothed in rumpled tan slacks, stretched down to a small foot in a petite walking shoe. It was a nice leg and a nice foot, so he took time to appreciate them.

He’d seen those slacks and shoes before. Kristin had worn them.

He turned his head and looked up into her face. She smiled down at him through bruised lips, and her left hand continued to rub his cheek. Her right hand rested palm-down on her lap. When she lifted it, he saw that a circular pattern of seared, crinkled skin marred the back of it, along with a smear of something brown.

“Your hand…”

“Burned with acid.” From her matter-of-fact tone, she might have been saying she had eggs for breakfast. “It hurts less than it did at first.”

“What…? Why?”

“They think I know more than I’ve told. Next time they’ll put it on my face.”

In a blaze of anger he tried to rise. He could not.

“Be still,” she said. “I had enough trouble getting you into this position.”

He fell back, energy spent and head throbbing.

“I don’t want to move,” he said. “I like it fine where I am.”

“Idiot.” Her smile through swollen lips transformed the word into an endearment. “What brought you here on this fool’s errand?”

He tried to shrug his shoulders, but found that impossible. “I heard the other fool might want company.”

She gave a sad laugh. “We are a pair of them. I never knew people could be as evil as these are. The walls are thin, and I’ve heard them talking. The dark-haired one that calls himself Williams—he’s a chemist, I guess. I heard him bragging that he’d found something even more deadly than the stuff we found in Colombia. That’s what was keeping him here: he wanted to finish his experiment before they break camp and run into Canada.”

“I guess that’s why he backed his base up against the border. Cross it where no one is looking and he can disappear into the population.”

Kristin frowned. “He bragged that he’d set a vial of that new poison on one of his lab tables and treated it like an altar. It’s too deadly to take with him, but he says it will be destroyed in the fire.”

“In the fire?”

“He plans to burn these buildings. I guess you know they’re going to kill us first.”

“I figured as much. Any ideas?”

“None. Too many armed guards. Oh, Sledge…” Her tears fell onto his face. “We’ve come through so much and finally found each other. Does it have to end here?”

“It looks that way.” He searched for possibilities and found none. “You’ve tried untying me?”

More tears fell. “Yes. I couldn’t budge the knots.”

“Then we’re finished.” He had failed, and his failure would cause Kristin’s death as well as his own. Despair crashed in on him like a great sea wave, and he felt himself drowning in a darkness of heart and soul. Eyes closed, he surrendered to the darkness.

A light slap on his face brought him back. “There is one thing we can do,” Kristin said. “We can pray.”

Sledge’s old rebellion surged, the bitter memories of how the church had wronged his father. “I haven’t prayed since I was kid.”

Kristin spoke softly. “Neither had I, except on the plane coming out here. But we have nothing else. Will you do it with me?”

His resentments raged flood tide, but he couldn’t refuse Kristin. As she bowed her head, he closed his eyes. He tried to pray, but his thoughts whirled in a chaotic vortex of anger and frustration with nothing constant except the wish for Kristin’s safety and a desperate plea for help. Even those thoughts bounced back from the walls and compounded his confusion. He gave it up as a bad job.

In contrast, Kristin seemed calm, almost placid. Beyond her face he saw, for the first time, the window of their room. It was an ordinary window with six panes set in wooden frames. It was the armed guards, not the window, that barred their escape. But he had other uses for it. Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner?

“Take your shoe off,” he said. “Break one of the corner panes.”

Kristin did as he said. The breaking glass made a tinkling sound. Some fell outside, but most remained embedded in the frame.

“That narrow fragment in the lower right corner looks good,” he said. “Use your shoe and break out the other pieces so you won’t cut your hand. Then work out the slim one and cut these ropes.”

She again followed his instructions. With the other fragments gone, she grasped the flat surfaces of the chosen sliver between thumb and forefinger and worked it back and forth until it broke free of the putty. Holding the sharp fragment, she knelt beside him.

Before she could make the first cut, heavy footsteps approached the door. Sledge felt Kristin lift the sleeve of his jacket, followed by the chill of cold glass on the skin above his wrist. The elastic of the sleeve’s wristband snapped back into place. He felt Kristin tugging on the bonds as Erich Staab flung the door open.

“Get up,” Staab commanded. “The boss wants you.”

He watched with a smirk as Sledge struggled to stand without the use of his arms. Staab himself stood well clear, apparently guarding against a two-legged kick, until Sledge managed to lever himself up onto his knees.

The bodyguard seized him by the collar and, with surprising strength, yanked him fully upright.

The bonds on Sledge’s ankles limited him to steps of about twelve inches. He shuffled laboriously ahead of Kristin while Staab brought up the rear. They continued about three-quarters of the length of the long building, which Sledge recognized as a laboratory, to a table where Koenraad stood waiting. Next to the table was an ordinary sink. Kristin gasped.

Koenraad said nothing as Staab lifted Sledge and lowered him into a straight chair with his bound arms behind the chair back. Staab’s rough handling stretched Sledge’s shoulder tendons, but at least the sliver of glass didn’t cut into his arm. The chair sat next to a lab table that held heavy bottles, some full, some empty. Sledge hoped he’d never know their content.

Helpless, he watched Staab push Kristin into another chair and bind her as Sledge was bound. She seemed to know what was coming but greeted it in stoical silence. Her terror showed only in her eyes.

Koenraad addressed Staab. “Are the men ready to leave?”

“They’re packing up now.”

Sledge’s jaw tightened. He was running out of time.

Standing beside Kristin, Koenraad held a bottle of clear liquid in front of his chest and spoke to Sledge. “Now, Mr. Sledge, you have seen what this acid did to the back of Miss Halvorsen’s hand. Imagine what it will do to that beautiful face. You can prevent that if you tell us all you know. And, of course, the names and locations of your colleagues.”

Kristin pre-empted, as if Koenraad had asked her. “I’ve told you all I know. I recognized this thug of yours and followed him. I tried to call the FBI, but I only got voicemail.”

Good! She hadn’t told them about the photographs. That meant Sledge could claim responsibility.

Staab slapped Kristin across the mouth. “No one asked you.”

While all eyes focused on her, Sledge shook his arms until the glass sliver slid down into his hand. Carefully, he turned it and sawed at the bonds on his wrists. Gently. Any visible motion would alert Staab.

He waited, wondering how long he could stall them. No use volunteering anything.

Koenraad turned back to him. “Well, Mr. Sledge?” He held the acid bottle in one hand and removed its glass stopper with the other. He gestured with the stopper toward Kristin.

“I told you almost everything,” Sledge lied. The glass cut into his fingers and blood began flowing, but he kept sawing at the bonds. “There are three copies of the photos I took of Contreras’s victims and those of you and your hoods at the factory. Two copies are with friends of mine. If I’m not back in person by tomorrow, they’ll give them to the FBI. The third copy and the memory card are in my safe deposit box.”

“The names and addresses of your two friends?”

Sledge made a show of hesitating. It wouldn’t do to betray friends easily. “One lives in Los Angeles.” It would take them more than a day to check up on that.

He paused and kept cutting at the ropes. His fingers felt slippery with blood, and he hoped it wouldn’t drip onto the floor and give him away.

“Quit stalling.” Koenraad moved the acid-laden stopper toward Kristin’s cheek.

She turned her head away. Staab seized her hair and forced her to look straight ahead.

“The address is…” Sledge tried desperately to remember street names from Los Angeles.

“Sepulveda…twenty-eight-oh-four…I don’t recall the zip.”

“And the name, Mr. Sledge. Quickly.” Koenraad threatened Kristin more closely with the acid-laden stopper.

“Davis,” Sledge blurted the fictitious name.

He intended to follow that with a given name, but a single rifle shot rang out. No sound of a striking bullet, only the sound of the weapon itself. Sledge automatically placed it about a hundred yards down the trail he’d used to come here.

Startled, Koenraad stepped back from Kristin and threw an angry look at Staab. The bodyguard released Kristin’s hair, drew his pistol, and bolted through the door into the office. The chemist himself stood transfixed, the acid bottle poised in front of his chest, its stopper gripped in the fingers of his other hand.

At that moment, Sledge’s bonds gave way. Now he could use his hands but his feet remained hobbled. Before he could loose them, Koenraad could use the acid against either him or Kristin. Somehow he had to gain time.

The bottles on the lab table!

Sledge seized one and threw it blindly at Koenraad. Without looking to see the result, he used the sliver of glass to cut the rope binding his feet. It was half done before he heard Koenraad scream. The acid bottle lay on the floor, a few drops of its liquid beside it with something like steam rising from them. Koenraad’s hand still gripped the stopper while an expression of horror possessed his face. Then Sledge saw the stain, the huge liquid stain on the chest and abdomen of the man’s clothing, the telltale marks of where the acid had spilled.

As the chemist screamed again and flailed backwards, Sledge finished cutting the rope that bound his ankles. The glass again cut his fingers and blood flowed freely. He leaped to Kristin’s chair and cut her free. Both stood, horrified by their captor’s agony, an agony that seemed to drive him past rational thought.

Still screaming, Koenraad staggered from lab table to lab table, colliding with each and sending bottles and flasks of liquids smashing to the floor. Near the far end of the lab he collapsed onto a table containing a single flask of cloudy liquid, dragging the flask with him as he fell to the floor. The flask broke, and the effect was immediate.

The screaming stopped. For a second, all was quiet. Then the chemist’s body began twitching, his limbs beating a random tattoo on the wooden floor. The twitching grew into violent convulsions, then subsided into stillness.

“Come on,” Sledge said, seizing Kristin’s good hand. “That liquid has to be some kind of nerve agent. Heaven knows what else he’s let loose in here.”

They ran into the office where both had been questioned.

“His files,” Kristin exclaimed, pointing to the table that held the three file boxes.

“That’s great,” Sledge said, “but right now I’d settle for a weapon.” With bloody fingers, he pulled drawers from the desk and dumped them on the floor. They contained no weapon.

A cry sounded from outside near the gate, and a multitude of running footsteps followed. Most seemed to pass around the building, but one set came directly toward it. Sledge spun to face the outside door just as Erich Staab charged through it, his pistol at ready.

Staab halted in his tracks as he saw Sledge, and Sledge seized the moment to kick the pistol out of Staab’s hand. It landed somewhere in a corner, but Sledge didn’t wait to see where. He tried to follow the kick by grasping Staab’s arm to twist and throw him to the floor, but Staab snatched the arm away too quickly. Sledge bored headfirst into the unguarded body and followed with a body punch. He tried for the groin, but Staab was again too quick. He wasn’t able to deliver a blow to Sledge, but his parrying of Sledge’s thrusts left the two standing and grasping each other like wrestlers in a ring, applying strength to strength, each seeking leverage to throw the other.

Staab found it first. He was taller, and his longer arms served to wrench Sledge off balance. They fell to the floor, the thug on top. In spite of Sledge’s strength, he found himself forced onto his back with Staab’s hands at his throat, while the bodyguard’s longer arms prevented Sledge from attacking his face. Staab’s grip tightened, and blackness closed over Sledge’s eyes.

A sudden crash followed. Staab’s hands fell away from Sledge’s throat, and the bodyguard’s dead weight collapsed onto his face. With an effort, Sledge thrust the inert body away and gulped in lungfuls of precious air. When he could see again, he found Staab lying unconscious beside him, while Kristin stood over them both, her hand gripping Staab’s pistol.

“What happened?” Sledge asked.

Kristin gave him a hard look. “I got tired of watching him kill you. Besides, I owed him one. He clamped my hand while his boss put acid on it.”

More footsteps sounded outside. These were cautious, tentative. They stopped some distance from the door.

Sledge took the pistol from Kristin and stood to one side of the entrance.

They waited.

A familiar voice broke the silence. “Greetings, señores. I have your house surrounded. Now you must come out and face the musicians.”

Relief flooded through Sledge. “Raúl, you rascal. What are you doing here?”

The Colombian entered, grinning, his hunting rifle held at ready. “I have been teaching lessons in etiquette to these malefactories who were impolite to me in New Orleans.” His eyes focused on the unconscious Staab. “Who is that?”

“One of the bad guys.” Sledge jerked a thumb toward the other room. “That room is contaminated and this one will be. We have to get out of here.”

Before Raúl could reply, a bullhorn sounded from somewhere outside the gate. “Attention in there. We are federal police with a warrant to search the premises. Come out and make yourselves known.”

Kristin and Raúl glanced at Sledge, who paused as he tried to decide how to handle the unconscious Staab.

The bullhorn sounded again. “Everyone in there: put your hands up and come out.”

The agent in charge apparently wasn’t taking chances.

Quickly, Sledge cleared the pistol and placed it on the desk, its magazine beside it. He wasn’t about to carry a weapon outside and give some trigger-happy agent an excuse to shoot him.

“There are three of us,” he called. “All friendlies. This building is contaminated with some kind of chemical agent. We’re bringing out files you’ll need for evidence, and we have one prisoner.”

Even as he spoke, Kristin seized one box of Koenraad’s files, piled it on top of the other, and carried both toward the door.

The bullhorn spoke again. “Come out with your hands up.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Sledge yelled. “She’s bringing you an armload of evidence.”

Before he could slow her down, Kristin carried her burden through the door. Sledge held his breath, but no shots came. Only vague sounds of what sounded like a scuffle.

Raúl cleared his hunting rifle and held it by the barrel with the butt pointing skyward. Still holding it in that position, he raised both hands and stepped through the door. Soon afterward came sounds of another scuffle.

“OK,” Sledge called. “I’m bringing the prisoner out.”

The unconscious Staab still lay on his stomach. Sledge used one hand to lift him by the belt and carry him toward the door, Staab’s hands and feet dragging on the wooden floor. At the doorway, Sledge raised his free hand as he’d been commanded. Once outside, he dropped the blond brute face down in the dirt.

“Here’s your prisoner,” he said.

Before he could say more, an agent spread-eagled him against the fence and searched him. Not daring to turn his head, Sledge shouted a warning. “Keep your people out of the building. It’s contaminated with a chemical agent. I don’t know what kind, but I think it’s something like VX. The man in charge of all this is in the second room, dead.”

“You’d better believe him,” said a familiar voice. “That’s Sledge.”

Still spread-eagled, Sledge risked turning his head and saw his PI companion, Rich.

The bullhorn relayed Sledge’s warning to the entire group.

“Let him go,” said the same authoritative voice, though without the bullhorn.

Sledge straightened up to see Raúl being searched by one agent while another checked the clearance of his rifle. A grim-faced woman agent was just finishing her search of Kristin.

The FBI team had not been idle during the searches. Two men were examining three bodies that lay near the gate, while others could be seen checking out the fenced compound. The man with the authoritative voice motioned Sledge, Kristin, and Raúl into a group around him. One agent handcuffed Staab while another leaned Raúl’s rifle against the fence.

“I’m Harwell, FBI,” said the authoritative man, flashing an ID card too quickly for Sledge to read. “All right. You’re Sledge, and I guess you’re Kristin Halvorsen.” His gaze fixed on Raúl. “But who are you?”

The Colombian raised his hands, palms-up, in front of his shoulders. “I am only a tourist.”

Sledge wondered how Raúl could look so innocent.

Before Harwell could comment, two agents approached wearing puzzled expressions. One carried a crossbow. “The big blond guy over there—the one who looks like the one on the ground here—was killed with a rifle,” he said. “We found a note on him that said, ‘Impolite.’ The other two were killed with a crossbow.”

“A crossbow?” Harwell’s eyes boggled.

“A crossbow.” The man brandished the weapon. “We found it in a kind of hunting blind back down the road. It’s been wiped clean of prints.”

Harwell shook his head in disgust. “We come here to rescue you two and find you’ve rescued yourselves. We expect to shoot it out with professional gunmen and find they’re all gone. Confoundedest case I ever worked.”

Another agent walked up to report. “We caught one guy before he got out the back gate. He says some kind of secret weapon panicked everybody.”

“Secret weapon?”

“Yeah. They understood one guy getting killed with a rifle. But when two more got it without a shot being fired they panicked and bugged out. He says they couldn’t fight against modern technology.”

Sledge voiced his frustration. “I’m sorry they got away. They might have valuable information.”

Harwell grinned. “I’m sorry, too, but for a different reason. Canadian authorities are waiting for them across the border. That means international coordination before we can question them. Say, where’s that Mexican?”

Raúl was nowhere in sight. His rifle had also disappeared.

Sledge said, “Maybe his tourist visa expired.” He figured Raúl had his reasons.

Before Harwell could order a search, Staab groaned and tried to roll over. Unable to, he glared at his captors.

“At least we can talk to this one,” Harwell said. He appeared to forget about Raúl.

Suddenly drained of all energy, Sledge led Kristin aside. While the bustle of agents continued, they stood together in the calm of the late afternoon. Sledge’s cut hands had stopped bleeding, though they were covered with caked blood. He took no thought for them but checked Kristin’s acid burn.

“Bad second degree,” he said. “You’re going to have a scar.”

“Better my hand than my face.”

Sledge sighed. “We were lucky to get out of this one alive.”

“Lucky?” Kristin raised an eyebrow. “Have you forgotten who we talked to just before we found a piece of glass? Who do you think led us to it?”

“I haven’t forgotten.” Sledge felt as if a wall inside him had dissolved. It was a good feeling. “I guess we do owe it to Him.”

“And have you forgotten what we talked about over dinner in Saint Kitts? How each of us was lacking something?”

“I haven’t forgotten it, and I haven’t forgotten what we planned to do about it.” In the place where the wall had been, Sledge felt the beginnings of an inner peace.

They stood a moment in silence, then joined their imperfect hands and began the long journey toward completion.