The Chemist

CHAPTER 18

“You’re going back,” he said in a hollow whisper.

She nodded.

“Do you think Arnie might still be -”

“No. He’s dead.”

Daniel’s body swayed ever so slightly in reaction to the cold certainty of her words. “Then shouldn’t we be running? You told me if they come for us, we run.”

He was right, and it was also her nature to run.

She wondered if this was the feeling those mothers had – the ones you read about in the news who lifted the minivan off their child. Desperate, terrified, but also as powerful as a superhero.

Alex had her way of doing things: plan, plan, plan, plan for every possibility, and then, when disaster hit, execute the plan that was the best fit. She did not do spur-of-the-moment. She did not do instinct. She did not do fight; she did flight.

But she didn’t just have herself to protect tonight. She had a minivan to lift.

There was no plan, only instinct.

Her instinct was that a serious attack was happening, a well-coordinated one organized by people who had more intel than they should have. She and Daniel could run, but who knew what else the hunters had set up? There could be another trap.

If she could find out who they were and what they knew, her escape with Daniel had a much better chance of success.

Finding things out was her specialty, after all.

Attacking was not, but that just meant it would not be expected. Hell, she was more than a little surprised herself.

The hunters didn’t know about the Batcave, or they would have been waiting for her here. They didn’t know about the resources she had access to.

If she thought this through at all, she would probably change her mind. But she was high on her own adrenaline now, and trying to make the smart choices. Not just the ones that would save them tonight, but that would save them tomorrow and the next day. She couldn’t make the right choices if she didn’t have the right information.

“Running would probably be safest in the short term,” she answered.

“Then?”

“I haven’t had this chance before – to interrogate one of the assassins sent for me. The more I know about who they are, the safer we’ll be in the future.”

A second passed.

“You’re not leaving me behind,” he stated evenly.

“No, I need your help. But only on one condition.”

He nodded.

“You have to do exactly what I say. I don’t care if you like it or not.”

“I can do that.”

“You have to stay in the car.”

His head jerked back just a little, then his lips tightened.

“Exactly what I say,” she repeated.

He nodded again, not pleased. She was not convinced he meant it.

“I’ll need you to cover me,” she explained, “and the Humvee is the best place for that. You can’t watch my back if someone shoots you. Okay. This is going to get ugly. Can you handle that?”

“I’ve handled ugly.”

“Not like this.” She paused for a second. “My best guess is that these guys think they’re here for Kevin and you. There’s a chance I’m already dead, as far as the people who matter are concerned. That means I have to do things differently than I usually would. I can do only those things that Kevin could do. It’s going to be old school, and we won’t be able to leave any survivors.”

He swallowed, but nodded once more.

“All right, take the night-vision goggles, you’re driving.”

She truly wished he didn’t have to see what was coming – to see her the way she was going to have to be – but there was no help for it now.

As they drove carefully through the barn door, the dogs silent in the back of the Humvee except for some heavy breathing, she could feel herself changing, getting ready. It was going to be both ugly and very, very messy. That was, if they didn’t get her first.

She pulled a small syringe from a bag in her pack. Her last, but then, if she didn’t use it now, she might not live to need it another night.

“Do you trust me?” she asked him.

“Yes.” The way he said it gave unusual weight to the simple affirmative.

“I’ve got only this one dose left, so we’re going to have to share a needle, like junkies. My blood’s clean, I promise.”

She stabbed herself in the leg and depressed the plunger a little less than halfway. Daniel was bigger than she was.

“What is it?” he asked nervously.

She’d forgotten. He didn’t like needles. “A synthesis of dextroamphetamine and an opioid – kind of like… adrenaline and painkillers. It will help you keep going if you get shot.” Anywhere but the head or heart, she didn’t add.

He nodded, and then very carefully kept his eyes forward as she stabbed him through his jeans and into his thigh. He didn’t wince. She pushed the rest of the solution into his body. It was enough to last for thirty minutes at most.

“How well can you see?”

“Surprisingly well.”

“Can we go faster?”

He stepped on the gas as his answer.

“When you’re in place,” she instructed, “get in the backseat and crack open these little side windows. Shoot anything human that isn’t me. I shouldn’t be hard to pick out – I’ll be a lot smaller than anyone else you’ll see.”

His lips tightened again.

“You stay in here no matter what, you got that?”

He nodded.

“Are you going to have a problem shooting these people?”

“No.” He said it forcefully, then clenched his teeth.

“Good. Anything goes wrong – your gun jams, someone gets into the Humvee somehow, whatever, you throw a grenade out the window. That’s the signal that you need help. Do you know how to use a grenade?”

“What’s your signal?”

“Huh?”

“If you need my help, what’s your signal?”

“My signal is stay in the car, Daniel. The grenade?”

“I think so,” he grumbled.

“This might take a little while, so don’t get antsy. I won’t start an interrogation until I have everything secured. Oh, pull the goggles off before you throw a grenade, or close your eyes. Look out for flares – they’ll blind you.”

“Got it.”

Suddenly, a phone rang.

Daniel jumped a foot, hitting his head on the low ceiling.

“The hell?” Alex shouted.

“It’s Kevin’s phone,” Daniel said, patting his vest frantically with his right hand. He dug the phone out of a snap pocket meant for ammo. She took it from him as he fumbled with it.

An unfamiliar number glowed on the display. She jabbed the answer button.

“Danny?” Kevin barked in her ear.

“Rotten timing, Beach! He’ll call you back!”

“Put him on, you -”

She hung up and powered the phone off.

“Stay focused. You can call him back when we’re finished.”

“No problem.”

Well, Kevin was alive. She supposed that was good news. Except someone was going to have to tell him his retirement arrangements were gone and his friend was dead.

“What are you going to do?” Daniel asked. “Tell me the plan so I know what to watch for.”

“You’re going to ram through the gate, if they closed it. That will get their attention. We’ll tweak the plan if there are more than four waiting. You accelerate up to the house, then turn right so that your side of the vehicle is exposed. Four or less, you slow down, but don’t stop. I’ll slide out. Hopefully, they’ll stay focused on you. Keep going a few yards, then stop driving and start shooting. I’ll hit them from the side. You shoot to kill. I will try to get someone down that I can still talk to. I’m hoping that somebody is passed out in my room upstairs, too. I’ll take Einstein to keep the other dogs off me. Khan stays with you. If they hole up in the house, I’ll get back in and we’ll come in through the wall.”

“I can see the gate. It’s open.”

“Punch it up to the house.”

He accelerated.

“Lights!” he told her in the same moment she saw them. Headlights coming up the road toward them, moving closer fast.

“Goggles off! New plan. Hit them. Hard. Roll right over them if you can. Brace yourself, don’t lose control of the car.”

She grabbed the dash with one hand, her seat with the other. Daniel shoved the goggles to his forehead and floored the gas pedal. She wished there was a way to secure the dogs. They were going to feel this.

The other car didn’t react to their charge until the last second, like maybe its occupants had been watching behind them rather than out front. Or maybe, with the headlights and running lights off and the matte-black paint, the Humvee was mostly invisible in the night.

It was a midsize SUV, white. Once he saw them, the driver veered off to Alex’s right. Daniel jerked the wheel right and the Humvee plowed into the passenger side of the SUV with a deafening shriek of tearing metal and the explosive pop of safety glass crumpling. The dogs flew forward; a shower of metallic clanks and jangles sounded while Khan’s body crashed heavily into the back of both the driver’s and the passenger’s seats. Alex’s head whipped forward but missed the dashboard by inches when the seat belt yanked her back. The SUV flew a few feet away, tottered on two wheels for a second, then smashed, driver-side-first, into the ground. The passenger-side headlight burst with another explosion of glass. Khan and Einstein whimpered, falling back to the floor.

“Again!” she yelled.

Daniel slammed the front of the Humvee into the undercarriage of the SUV. Metal protested and squealed. The SUV slid across the flat yard like it weighed no more than a cardboard box. She could see they weren’t going to be able to roll it. There was nothing to push it against, just the endless grass.

“Cover me.” She snagged the goggles off his head. “Use the nightscope on the rifle. Einstein, come!”

Alex didn’t wait for a response. She was out of the Humvee before it was totally stopped. Einstein’s toenails scrabbled against the back of her wet jeans as he hurried to join her. She had to move fast, before the men in the car could recover from the impact. Before they could get their automatic weapons back into play.

She ran straight for the windshield, Glock held tight in both hands. She was better with the SIG Sauer, but this was going to be extremely close up and she would probably want to ditch the gun afterward.

Everything was incredibly clear through the lenses, bright green with vibrant contrasts. The driver-side headlight was still on but buried in the ground so it emitted only a low hazy glow in the dust they’d churned up. The windshield frame was entirely empty, and she could see two men in the front seats, two deflated airbags from the initial impact hanging across the hood. The driver was a bloody mess, the top of his head pressing tight against the side-door frame, his thick neck bent at an impossible angle. She could see one eye open, staring sightlessly at her. He looked young, early twenties, with ruddy skin, light hair, and the kind of over-built anatomy that screamed steroids. He might have been an agent, except the rest of his look was wrong. His hair was about eight inches long and there was an ostentatious diamond stud in the one earlobe she could see. She would bet he was hired muscle. He didn’t look like he’d been a decision maker.

The passenger was moving, his head wobbling confusedly as if he were just coming around. He was older than the other, maybe midthirties, and swarthy, with a thick three-day growth on his cheeks, burly through the middle in the way that men who lifted the really heavy weights sometimes were. She’d bet he was a bull on his feet. He was wearing a well-fitting shiny suit that seemed inappropriate for this kind of operation but rang a few bells for her. Still strapped in his seat, he was right about at her eye level. She approached swiftly and jammed the barrel of her gun into his forehead, glancing down to see what his hands were doing. They were currently empty and limp.

“Are you in charge?” she demanded.

“Huh?” he moaned.

“Who is your boss?”

“Accident. We’ve been in an accident, Officer,” he told her, blinking into the dark. His eyes seemed to be moving just slightly out of sync with each other.

She modified her approach, pulling the gun back and softening her voice. “Help is coming. I need to know how many of you there are.”

“Uh, six…”

That meant there were four more, possibly heading out toward the sound of the crash right now. At least the dogs were beginning to congregate around her, all of them on silent mode thanks to Einstein’s presence. She wondered if they would have remembered her if she were alone.

“Sir?” she asked, trying to imagine how a cop would speak to someone in a car accident. “Where are the others?”

“Hitchhikers,” he said, his rolling eyes starting to move more purposefully. “The others are hitchhikers. We picked up four men and dropped them off here. Then there were dogs – crazy dogs attacking us. I thought they were going to chew through the tires.”

He was gaining more control, spinning the story carefully. He made a fist, then released it. She raised the gun again and kept her eyes on his hands.

“Were these… hitchhikers hurt in the attack?”

“I think so. I think maybe two of them. The others went in the house.”

So hopefully there were only two others. But was this the guy in charge? The age was right; however, she’d picked up a few things during her time in Chicago. In an orchestrated hit, usually the guys left in the car were lower on the totem pole. The driver was secondary. The star of the show would be the one the contract was made with. The one with the skills.

“I think I need a doctor,” he complained.

“An ambulance is on the way.”

The light from the SUV’s one surviving headlight was almost entirely blocked by thick grass and settling dirt, but there was enough that his eyes were beginning to adjust. She saw them widen when he abruptly realized there was a gun in his face.

He made a grab inside his jacket. She fired a round into his right shoulder; she didn’t want to aim for the hand and take the chance of the bullet passing through and into a vital organ. She wasn’t done with him yet.

He screamed, and his right arm jerked out in a pained spasm, flinging blood across her neck and chin. The gun he’d been reaching for slipped from his fingers, dropped onto his dead companion’s face, then bounced out of the car and against her shoe. She knew it wouldn’t be his only weapon, so she aimed down and shot him through the palm of his left hand.

He howled again and struggled against the seat belt as if he were trying to hurl himself through the empty windshield frame at her. Something was wrong with his legs – he couldn’t get the purchase he was looking for.

The action had roused the dogs, who were all snarling now. Einstein launched himself at the passenger side of the car, which was currently the top side. Bracing his paws against the frame of the missing window, he stretched his neck into the SUV and locked his massive jaws around the man’s right shoulder – the one she’d just shot.

“Get it off me! Get it off me!” the man shrieked in abject terror.

She took advantage of his total distraction to grab the gun at her foot. It was a cheap.38, safety off.

“Einstein, control!” Alex ordered as she straightened. It was the only command she remembered besides escape protocol and at ease, and control seemed closest to what she wanted. Einstein let go of the shoulder but kept his teeth right in the man’s face, slavering spots of bloody saliva onto his skin.

“Who are you?” the man screamed.

“I’m the person who is going to have this animal chew your face off if you don’t tell me what I want to know in the next thirty seconds.”

“Keep it away!”

“Who’s in charge?”

“Hector! He brought us in!”

“Where is he?”

“In the house! He went in and didn’t come out. Angel went in after him and didn’t come out. The dogs were going to rip the doors off the car! We bailed!”

“Who was on the sniper rifle? Hector?”

Einstein snapped his teeth inches from the terrified man’s nose.

“Yes! Yes!”

She’d never thought of using animals in an interrogation, but Einstein was an unexpectedly effective asset.

“Hector was going to make the hit?”

“Yes!”

“Who was the target?”

“I don’t know! We’re just supposed to drive and shoot anyone who tried to leave.”

“Einstein, get him!” It wasn’t the best improv; Einstein’s eyes cut over to her, clearly confused. It didn’t matter to the man in the SUV.

“No, no!” he screamed. “I swear! Hector didn’t tell us. Those Puerto Rican hitters don’t tell outsiders anything!”

“How did you find this place?”

“Hector gave us the addresses!”

Plural? “More than one?”

“There were three houses on the list! We did the first one earlier. Hector said it was the wrong place!”

“What did you do there?”

“Hector went in. Five minutes later, he came out. Told us to move on to the next.”

“That’s all you know?”

“Yes! Yes! Everything!”

She shot him in the head twice with his own gun.

There was a countdown running in her mind. She had no idea how long it had actually taken to release the dogs, float downstream, and load the Humvee. She didn’t know when Hector had entered the house or how long it had taken him to get to her room. What she did know was that the pressurized canister of gas she’d left armed there would continue to quietly exude the chemicals it was packed with for about fifteen minutes after someone opened the door. Once the contents ran out, she had maybe thirty minutes more – dependent on the size of the person involved – before the quarry was back on his feet. It was going to be close.

She jumped into the Humvee, holding the door open so Einstein could climb over her. She threw the goggles back to Daniel, getting only one glimpse of his face before she was blind again. All she could see was that his expression was tense.

“Get us to the house. Same plan as before if anyone comes out. Stop far enough back that you can see the sides of the house; watch for someone coming around.”

“The dogs will let me know if they see something.”

“Right,” she agreed. The advantages of the pack were more extensive than she could have anticipated.

She removed her PPK and holstered the Glock in its place. She stuck the.38 in her belt, shoved the PPK into the bag at her feet, then dug through that bag, pulling the things she needed by feel. She switched the bulletproof hat for the gas mask, quickly tightened it into place over her mouth and nose, screwed in the filter, then grabbed two more pressurized canisters, zip ties, thin tactical gloves, and her earring box; she stowed them in the pockets of her vest. She extracted the heavy bolt cutters last and stuck them through the belt by the empty holster, one handle inside, one out. Though the cutters were compact for their abilities, the handles still reached nearly to her knee. They would impede her movement a little, but if things went the way she wanted, she would need them.

She didn’t have time to think about what Daniel might be processing right now – how he might feel about her killing a helpless man.

The house came into view, all the visible windows downstairs lit. The windows upstairs were blacked out too well for her to be able to tell if the lights were on or not.

“Do you see anyone?”

“A body – over there.” Daniel pointed toward the outbuilding.

“We need to make sure he’s dead.” There were still three men unaccounted for. The fewer breathing, the better her chances.

“I’m pretty sure he is. It looks like he’s… in more than one piece.” His voice sounded a little hollow.

Hers didn’t. “Good.”

She couldn’t see anyone near the house. They weren’t dumb enough to run out and see what was going on, apparently. No silhouettes appeared in the windows. Surely they would have shut off the lights if they were going to shoot from one of them. Maybe upstairs… the windows were so completely covered that she couldn’t even tell exactly where they were. Or the blackout treatments had been pulled back and someone was watching from a darkened room.

“Can you see the upstairs windows?”

“They all look covered,” Daniel told her.

“Okay, start slowing. Two seconds after we’re out, stop and get ready to shoot.”

He nodded. “Got it.”

“Einstein, come here. Get ready.”

Daniel angled the car so that his side was facing into the lights of the house. She hoped she would be invisible on the dark side of the vehicle. She opened the door and slid down toward the slowly moving grass below. She tried to re-create the move she’d seen in a hundred movies: she fell to her knees, then rolled onto her side as Einstein leaped over her. She was sure she’d done it wrong, but she wouldn’t know how wrong until the Survive wore off.

She’d forgotten to tell Daniel to close the door and lock everything down, but it was common sense and he seemed to be thinking quickly tonight. Maybe it was genetics again – he was wired for this kind of situation, just like his brother. Anyway, if someone tried to get into the car, Khan would be waiting. She could imagine what it would feel like if someone who’d already been harried by dozens of attack dogs came face to face with Khan on higher ground in the dark. There was no way this wouldn’t affect his aim and reaction time.

Even though she had gloves on, crawling across the gravel would have been excruciating if she hadn’t drugged herself up. As she hurried away from the Humvee, she heard the rush of her pack’s paws approaching in the dry brush – not just Einstein, but the dozens of other survivors. She’d never had backup like this before. A sniper above would have trouble separating her from the mass.

She moved into a crouch next to the porch. The Humvee was stopped now. She heard the door slam. A low whimper, quite near her head, made her freeze. The quiet whine happened again. It wasn’t a human sound.

She heaved herself up onto the porch, rolled under the banister, and then stayed down, lower than the windows. Lola was there, curled up in the far corner. Alex knew that even injured, Lola would sound the alarm if someone else were close by. She crawled to the dog, her gloved hands slipping against a trail of blood. Lola raised her head half an inch, and her tail lifted for one limp wag.

“It’s going to be okay, Lola. I’m coming right back. You hold on, all right?” She caressed the dog’s ears once, and Lola panted softly.

Einstein waited in the shadows by the door. Alex crawled to him.

“Stay with Lola, Einstein.”

She couldn’t interpret the look he gave her. Hopefully he understood. She had to go in alone this time.

If she got through this night alive, she was going to track down a gas mask made for dogs.

Alex crouched beside the door and carefully inserted her earrings. They were out of place – delicate and fussy – next to the rest of her serious gear, but she didn’t have time to be worried about appearances and this could very well get physical. She grabbed the bigger canister from the front pocket of her vest, twisted the top off, pulled the door open, and threw it inside.

There was no reaction. No shout or sound of footsteps retreating as the gas filled the room. She waited two seconds, then half stood and ran crouched through the doorway with the Glock in her right hand and the shotgun in her left. She would be clumsy with her left hand, but you didn’t need good aim with a gun like this, not in close quarters.

She didn’t bother searching the first floor. If someone tried to come after her in the next five minutes and he didn’t have a gas mask, he’d be down quick. She played it out in her head as she moved to the stairs. Hector had come inside, searching for Daniel or Kevin or both of them. Because he’d come in alone, she suspected he’d been looking for only two people. With Arnie down, he’d think it was one on one. Still, he must have been very confident in his abilities to go in solo.

He would have had to check all the rooms downstairs. Then he would have tried the doors upstairs.

She was halfway up the steps now. The mist spilling from the canister below was heavy; it wasn’t climbing with her. Looking up, she could see that Daniel’s door was open, as was the bathroom’s. Light spilled down from the far right. That could only be her storage room.

She holstered the shotgun, crept to the top, put her elbows on the first step down, and leaned around the edge of the banister.

A man was down in the hallway, dressed in rugged black pants and combat boots. His head and shoulders rested on another set of legs, coming out of her room, these in similar pants but wearing black sneakers rather than boots.

Hector would be the one on the floor in her room, if the man in the suit had described events correctly. He would have opened the door, flipped on the light, and dropped. After a few minutes, Angel would have come looking to see if he needed help, seen his legs, and slid along the wall with gun in hand until the gas overpowered him.

She had no idea how long they’d been down.

So far, the man in the suit had been pretty honest with her. It made her feel safe enough to holster the Glock and get started. First, she took the gun she found in the first man’s hands and tossed it over the railing to the floor below. There was another gun tucked into the back of his pants – that went over the railing, too. She didn’t have time for a better search. She wished she could inject him with something that would keep him quiet, but unlike the gas, which would disappear from his system in the next half hour, the longer-term sedation would linger in his bloodstream and be a dead giveaway to anyone who suspected she might be here. She zip-tied his hands behind his back and then zip-tied his ankles together.

Hector was smaller than Angel, who looked similar to the dead blond in the SUV except for his coloring; both Hector and Angel were dark-haired, as she’d expected from the suit guy’s description. Hector was no more than medium height and lean, fit, but not in a way that would stand out on the street. He was clean-shaven and his skin was unmarked, at least the parts she could see; he wore a long-sleeved black athletic shirt. Angel had tattoos on three of his fingers and one on the side of his neck. Hector was smarter. If you were going to do wet work for a living, it was better to blend in, avoid features that any witness could easily describe to the police sketch artist.

A huge suppressed Magnum lay inches from Hector’s right hand. The sniper rifle was holstered across his back. She pulled the magazine from the rifle, took the massive handgun, and carried them back to the hallway to dump them over the stair railing. She heard them thud against the hard wood below; one of them made a metallic chink when it hit the previously discarded weapons.

She turned back to secure Hector.

The body lying in her storage room was gone.

She ripped the shotgun out of its holster and pressed her back against the wall beside the door. There was no sound. He would have to come through the door. When he did, she would shoot him. Even the most experienced assassin would be incapacitated with his legs blown off.

When the movement came, it was not through the door. Angel began to writhe, moaning in Spanish. In the split second that Alex was distracted, a shadow peeled off from Angel’s body and flew straight at her, knocking the shotgun from her hands and sending them both crashing toward the ground. She braced for the impact even while wrestling with the hands that were trying to strip the gun from her waist. His hands were stronger than hers, but then the crash came, and with it the shattering of tiny glass bulbs.

She could feel the scalding gas sear her neck, the exposed skin around the base of her mask, and she knew she would probably look sunburned there for a few hours, but her eyes and lungs were protected.

Her attacker was not prepared. He choked, his hands flying of their own accord to his throat, his blinded eyes. She whirled,.38 already drawn, and shot, aiming for his kneecap. She hit him in the left thigh instead.

He crumpled to that side and rolled into Angel, who was thrashing in earnest now, straining to pop the zip ties from his wrists. They were heavy-duty restraints, but he was a strong man.

She couldn’t handle them both. She was going to have to make a choice. Quickly.

Angel’s head was the closest thing to her. She fired twice into the top of it. He went limp.

Hector was gasping and scrubbing at his eyes at the same time as he was trying to roll away from her toward the stairs. She sprinted after him, hugging the wall to avoid his reach. He wasn’t in control enough to make a grab for her yet. She pulled the bolt cutters from her waist and clubbed the back of his head. His convulsing jerked to a stop.

This was all going to be a wasted effort if she’d killed him, but she had to secure him before she could even check for a pulse.

To be safe, she put an additional bullet through his left kneecap, then threw the.38 over the banister to the floor below. It had only one bullet left anyway. She used another zip tie to attach his uninjured right leg to the railing at the ankle and the knee, then his right arm at the wrist and the elbow. He wouldn’t be able to do much with his left leg. For lack of a better option, she zip-tied his left hand to Angel’s big black boot. Angel’s inert form had to weigh two seventy, at least. It was better than nothing. She touched Hector’s wrist, marginally satisfied to locate a steady pulse. He was alive; whether or not his brain function was preserved, she would have to wait to see.

She decided to double the cables, just in case. While she was tightening the second tie around Angel’s boot, she heard the change in Hector’s breathing as he came to. He didn’t cry out, though he had to be in tremendous pain. That wasn’t a good thing. She’d interrogated other hardened soldiers with good control over their reactions to pain. It took a long time to break them.

But those men had loyalty to their companions or their missions. She was confident this was a hit for hire. Hector would owe nothing to the people who’d given him the job.

She scooted a few feet away with the Glock gripped tight in her hands, watching to see how well her containment system would perform. It was too dark. She got up and backed toward the bathroom doorway, keeping her eyes on the figure on the ground. She felt behind her until she found the light switch and flipped it on.

Hector’s face was turned toward her; his dark eyes, although still tearing, were intensely focused. His face showed no evidence of the pain he was in. It was a disconcerting gaze, though his face was in other ways one of the most ordinary she had ever seen. His features were even and nondescript. He wasn’t attractive, but he wasn’t ugly, either. It was the kind of face that would be extremely hard to pick out of a lineup.

“Why haven’t you killed me?” he asked, his voice hoarse from the chemicals. Other than that, his voice was unremarkable. He had no accent at all. He could have been a network news anchor – no hint of where he came from in his inflections.

“I want to know who hired you.” Her voice rasped through the mask, slightly distorted. It sounded a little less human. She hoped that would throw him.

He nodded once, as if to himself. She saw minute shifts in his hands as he tested his bonds.

“Why would I tell you anything?” He didn’t say it angrily or as a challenge. He just sounded curious.

“Do you have any idea who I am?”

He didn’t answer, his face neutral.

“That’s the first reason why you should tell me what you know – because whoever sent you out here didn’t give you the information you needed to be successful. They didn’t prepare you for what you were facing. You don’t owe them anything.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” he pointed out, still in a polite, conversational voice. His fingers stretched downward, trying to reach the zip tie.

“No, you don’t. But if you don’t talk to me, I’ll hurt you. That’s the second reason.”

He weighed that. “And the third reason… if I talk, you’ll let me live.”

“Would you believe me if I promised you that?”

“Hmm.” He sighed. He thought for a moment and then asked, “But how will you know whether to believe what I tell you?”

“I know most of it. I just want you to fill in a few details.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you much. I have a manager; he works as the middleman. I never saw the person who paid for this.”

“Just tell me what your manager told you.”

He considered that, then twitched his shoulders as if to shrug. “I don’t like your offer. I think you could do better.”

“Then I’ll have to persuade you.”