Minotaur

10

“I don’t like this,” one of the servants said. Chapel decided that one would be Stephen, just because he wanted a name to pin on him. “Nothing like this was supposed to happen.”

“When you took this job,” the one Chapel decided would be Michael said, “you knew it was going to be dicey. Who hires a house servant who has bodyguard experience?”

“Every rich weirdo on Long Island,” Stephen said. He kept glancing at the door, as if he expected a wave of SWAT police to come storming through. “I don’t like this.”

“You already said that.”

“This guy,” Stephen went on, nodding at Chapel, who was busy doing his best impression of a semiconscious invalid (not exactly a stretch), “he’s from the government. The Pentagon, the boss said.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” Stephen asked.

“Don’t psych yourself out. This is going to be fine. Look at him—he can barely move.”

“But if his friends come looking for him—”

“Then,” Michael said, with a long-suffering sigh, “we say he hit his head and we were just trying to make him comfortable while we waited for the ambulance to come.”

“Comfortable. We were trying to make him comfortable by tying him up and gagging him.”

Michael just shrugged.

“Look, one of us should have a gun. I’m just saying. What if he wakes up? What if he wakes up and he’s pissed off?”

“Then he’ll be tied up and gagged,” Michael pointed out.

“One of us should have a gun. I’m going to get a gun.”

“Did the boss tell you to leave and get a gun?”

Stephen smiled as if he’d just solved one of life’s great mysteries. “He yelled at us before, for not being proactive and tying him up. Maybe he expects us to be proactive again. These rich assholes, they’re always yelling at their employees about being more proactive. About thinking outside the box.”

“The way you’re thinking’s going to get you put in a box,” Michael growled. “Just shut up and sit tight.”

“I’m going to get a gun. Keep an eye on him.”

The way Michael sighed, then, told Chapel that these two had similar conversations all the time. Michael talked a tough game, but it was clear he wasn’t in charge—Stephen didn’t have to listen to him.

He certainly made no attempt to stop Stephen when he left to go get a gun. Instead he just moved over to stand by the door, where he could watch Chapel and also be ready if anyone came storming in. He was the smarter of the two, definitely—Michael was one to look out for.

He was also, now, all alone with Chapel.

Time to figure out what he could do with that bit of luck, Chapel thought.

He quietly tested the makeshift rope holding his wrists together. It was surprisingly well knotted. Maybe one of the servants had been a sailor in a former life. Maybe they doubled as crew for the yacht. There was no way Chapel could untie his hands. But maybe he didn’t need to.

Michael watched him with a certain nervous intensity. He kept his eyes moving around the room, as if he expected danger to arise from any corner. There wasn’t a lot Chapel could do while he was being watched like that. For a long time he just fumed and waited, thinking through the angles, wondering if the crazy plan he’d come up with could possibly work. He would have to be silent, perfectly silent, and he would need to move very fast. He was still groggy from being smacked across the back of the head with a wine bottle. He would have to take that into account.

Michael’s eyes kept flicking over at him. The servant knew better than to get complacent, to take his eyes off his charge. He was, in his way, good at this.

Until the second he wasn’t.

Maybe he heard something out in the hall. Maybe he was just willing Stephen to hurry up and come back with the gun. For whatever reason, Michael broke off his careful watching and went to the door, opening it a crack so he could look through.

Chapel had his chance—if Michael didn’t immediately turn around and see what he was doing.

His hands were securely tied, but Chapel still had a way to get free—at the shoulder. Chapel’s artificial arm had been designed to work for just about any kind of amputee, including one with no arms at all. Normally when he removed the arm (at night when he went to bed, or when he went swimming) he would reach around with his good arm and flick a hidden catch to make the clamps release from his shoulder. But a double amputee wouldn’t be able to do that, so the arm’s designers had put in another way to release it. Chapel rolled his left shoulder as far back as it would go. A tiny motor in the arm buzzed against his skin, basically asking him for confirmation. He rolled the shoulder again, twice, and the clamps retracted. He was terrified the arm would fall off onto the billiards table with a thump. It didn’t.

Michael called out into the hallway in a stage whisper, calling for his friend. There was no reply.

Behind him Chapel carefully lowered his feet to the floor. He wanted to be standing up when he untied his hands, just in case.

That turned out to be a smart move. Before he could even begin to work at the knots, Michael turned around again to look at his prisoner. Chapel saw his face start to change when he saw Chapel standing up, one of his arms dangling at his side. He saw Michael start to shout out for help.

He couldn’t let that happen.

The artificial arm Chapel wore cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was a miracle of modern engineering, an incredible marriage of computer controls and tiny servomotors, of negative feedback circuits and incredibly deft actuators. It was one of the most complex and advanced machines in the world.

It also made a surprisingly effective club.

Chapel spun around from his waist, extending his good right arm as he pivoted. His artificial arm flashed out like a medieval flail. The heavy clamps on the artificial shoulder caught Michael in the face and sent the servant flying backward to crash against the wood paneling of the billiard room’s wall.

Instead of shouting for help Michael just made a nasty gasping noise as his breath went out of him. He struggled to find his footing, to come up for a counterattack.

Chapel knew he couldn’t let that happen. He moved in fast, his legs still a little numb. But they remembered their training. He closed the distance between himself and Michael in a fraction of a second. He threw his right arm around Michael’s neck and squeezed as hard as he could, putting pressure on the man’s carotid artery. In his training with the Army Rangers Chapel had performed that move so many times it was second nature.

It was almost impossible to knock someone unconscious by hitting them on the back of the head. However, stopping the blood flow to their brain usually did the trick.

Michael slumped to the floor, his eyes slightly open but failing to track. He looked almost peaceful as he collapsed in a heap.