Crooked River

66

Over an hour ago they’d brought Coldmoon up from the cell, blindfolded, cuffed to one of the two guards, and wearing the filthy hospital gown belonging to Luís, stenciled over the chest with the number 714. After a circuitous journey, they took off the blindfold and he found himself in a small room — a sort of annex, it seemed — in beige cinder block, with two benches screwed to the floor, along with a locked medical cabinet. He had been seated on a bench, the guard he was cuffed to beside him. The other guard took the seat opposite, his M16 laid across his lap. Both guards were bored, clearly used to this routine. Coldmoon was careful to maintain a defeated attitude, adopting a listless shuffle that had annoyed the guards into prodding him forward more than once.

As the minutes had passed, Coldmoon had marveled at how silent the room was. There was a large, stout door in the opposite wall that, he figured, led to the laboratory where the inmates were experimented on. He had no idea what those experiments might be, although he assumed they involved the horror of self-amputation. If this was the waiting room, then soundproofing made sense — he imagined what came next would be a pretty noisy ordeal.

As the minutes passed, Coldmoon considered his next step. On the one hand, he could continue to wait until he was called. The imprisoned man had told him there were ninety minutes between appointments — for want of a better word — and as far as he could tell, his own ninety were nearly up. A better course of action would be to take charge now and force the action himself, when he knew the lay of the land and his adversaries were least prepared. The guard sitting next to him was half-asleep, and the other beginning to nod off as well.

He’d never get a better — or even another — opportunity.

Pretending to be weary himself, Coldmoon leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head nodding, arms drooping down. He yawned quietly, resignedly. Slowly, he reached one arm under the hospital gown he was wearing and grasped the butt of the Browning he’d strapped to his upper calf. He freed it from its holster, careful to make no noise. And then, with a smooth, unhurried motion, he brought it up and fired point-blank at the guard next to him, the sound of the shot deafeningly loud in the confined space, spraying the cinder-block wall with gore. The other guard jerked his head up just in time to receive a bullet in the face. He slammed backward against the wall, then rolled onto the floor.

Soundproofing or not, Coldmoon knew the tremendous loudness of the shots would probably generate a response. His own ears were ringing. Laying the Browning aside, he grabbed the guard’s M16 with his free arm and crouched, aiming at the stout door.

A second or two later, the door slammed open and Coldmoon let loose a burst, taking down a uniformed guard who had come to investigate. With the weapon clutched under his right arm, still aimed at the door, he knelt down, plucked the handcuff key from the dead guard on the bench, and unlocked the cuffs. Then he moved forward toward the door, waited a moment, and kicked it wide.

He found himself in a large, dazzlingly lit laboratory. There, to his astonishment, was Pendergast, strapped and tied to a wheelchair, an IV rack beside him. Two orderlies and a doctor fell back in confusion and horror, the doctor dropping a syringe. Two soldiers who were overseeing the proceedings began to turn toward Coldmoon. He dropped them both with one long burst.

“Behind that mirror!” said Pendergast with a nod. “Kill everyone but the woman.”

Glancing in the indicated direction, comprehending immediately the mirror was a one-way observation window, Coldmoon trained the weapon on it and raked it with a two-second burst. The glass shattered in a huge spray, plates falling free, and behind it he saw a military officer in camo struggling to stand up, next to a woman. A third burst stitched its way up the general’s trunk from groin to throat, and he pitched forward, falling from the ruined window into the laboratory below with the sound of wet meat hitting the floor, as the woman scrambled away in panic. Coldmoon swung the M16 around to take out the doctor and orderlies — but they had already escaped out one of the lab doors.

Sirens went off in the room.

“The parang,” said Pendergast, pointing at it with his eyes.

Coldmoon snatched up the parang and used it to slice Pendergast free of the wheelchair. Pendergast ripped the IV from his arm and leapt to his feet, seizing an M16 from one of the dead soldiers.

The sirens continued to sound. And now a red light in the ceiling began to revolve.

Pendergast turned to Coldmoon. “Shall we take our leave?”

“Hell, yes.”