The Collected

CHAPTER 42

Nate woke with a start.

At first, he thought someone had come for him again, and he was about to be dragged away to some other round of torture. Waterboarding this time, or maybe something even more medieval, like the rack.

But it had only been the nightmares playing in his head. His cell was empty, the door firmly shut.

He lay on his stomach, letting the adrenaline coursing though his body dissipate. Once his heart rate had come back to normal, he sat up. The roar of the pain along his back had dropped a notch from cataclysmic supernova to titanic molten lava eruption. The spasms caused by the electricity, though, seemed to have stopped altogether.

Gingerly, he rose to his feet, felt his way across the dark room to the toilet, and relieved himself.

Time was a problem. His internal clock was misfiring, one moment telling him it was ten p.m., and the next, time for breakfast. He knew, though, that it was late, or, rather, early, because no light seeped in through the vent. The corridor lights so far had only been off at night.

The vent. There was something about the vent. A dream he had…no, no. An idea, as he’d been falling asleep.

A potential way out.

With growing excitement, he retrieved the bolt from where he’d stuck it in the mattress after using it last time, ran his fingers along the wall until he reached the door, and sat on the floor.

Given that no one had come after him the last time he removed the vent cover, he decided it was unlikely there was a camera in the room, night vision-equipped or otherwise, so he didn’t even bother concealing his actions as he removed his prosthetic leg. As soon as his stub eased out of the cup, he sighed with relief. He had worn the leg far too long without taking a break. Even toughened with calluses as his stub had become, it felt raw and worn. He allowed himself just a few seconds to rub his hand over it and massage the tissue.

Using the bolt, he removed the back frame of the vent again. This time he didn’t tie any strings to the front. Without any light, it would have been a struggle at best to run them over the slats and snag them back so he could tie them off, but he wasn’t worried. His previous experience had shown him the front wouldn’t fall out.

Once the back frame was free, he set it on the floor, out of the way. He felt along the slats embedded in the front half until he found a loose spot. Taking extra care, he worked his fingers into the space until he was able to wrap them around the corridor side of the slat.

Next, he used his free hand to push forward on each corner in succession until the frame popped out of the hole. He laid it quietly on the corridor floor.

With the hole now unblocked, he shoved his arm as far through it as possible, and reached across the front of the door until his hand came in contact with the locking bar that ran up and down the outside. He moved his hand upward, already knowing the door handle was too high for him to reach, but giving it a try anyway. After confirming his limitations, he pulled all the way back inside the cell and grabbed his prosthetic.

This was where his whole plan lived or died. Holding the leg by the ankle, he fed it through the rectangular opening. It was tight, but he was able to squeeze the whole thing through.

Closing his eyes, he pictured the front of the door as he turned the leg so that it was vertical, and moved it toward the door handle. When he passed the point where he thought he should have reached it, he shifted the leg to the side, and pushed up. He met no resistance, so he tried again. This time the cup struck home.

Down and vertical meant locked. Up ninety degrees to a horizon, unlocked.

It took him three tries to get the cup setting just right against the handle. The first two tries resulted in the leg shooting out away from the door, both times nearly causing him to lose hold of the ankle. On the third try, he felt the handle turn and heard the long metal rods slip along the side of the door. When the handle stopped moving, he gave the door a tentative push. It gave at the bottom, but the top held firm.

He placed the end of the prosthetic against the handle and shoved again. There was resistance, then finally a soft pop as the top rod slipped free of its locking slot. Immediately, the door swung outward a few inches.

Nate quickly retrieved his leg and remounted it against his sore stub. As soon as it was securely in place, he exited his cell, closed his door, and reengaged the metal rods. He replaced the front frame of the vent in the hole. Though he couldn’t see his handiwork in the dark, he was confident the door looked unchanged, and until someone opened it, there would be no reason to think he wasn’t still inside.

To his left, the corridor led to the doorway he’d been taken through every time he left his cell. On the two occasions he’d been unhooded, he’d seen that the door was similar to the cell doors in its metal makeup, but that there was no corresponding locking rod on either side. To the right was the unknown.

He hesitated. Should he open the others’ cells? Get them out, too?

He couldn’t just leave them there.

Find the way out first, then get them.

He decided to go in the direction he’d never been taken. But before he took his third step-

“Who’s out there?” a voice whispered.

Nate froze, sure a guard had quietly entered the corridor and heard him moving around.

“I know you’re there. Who is that?”

It wasn’t a guard, Nate realized.

He turned the other way, and tiptoed until he was outside the occupied cell farthest from his own.

“Peter?” he whispered, leaning down toward the vent.

“Hello, Nate.”

As Nate had suspected, Peter had figured out who he was the first time they’d spoken.

“How did you get out of your cell?” Peter asked.

“Creative use of limbs.”

A grunt. “All right, and how are you getting out of the hallway?”

“I was about to have a look around. As soon as I figure it out, I’ll come back and get the rest of you.”

“Might be better if you get out and go for help.”

“I’m not leaving you all here.”

Peter was quiet for a moment. “They made a mistake bringing you here.”

“And don’t think I’m not going to let Quinn know about it.”

“No. He would have been a mistake, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Residue of an old job neither of you were on, that’s all.”

“Then why the hell-”

“Doesn’t matter. Go find the way out.”

Nate wanted to know more, but Peter was right. Now wasn’t time for a leisurely chat. “I won’t be gone long.”

“Good luck.”

Keeping one hand in front of him, and the other on the wall, Nate made his way down the corridor as quickly as he dared. For the first thirty feet, he came across other doors he guessed led into rooms similar to the one he’d been in, but all their locks were open, so he knew they were empty.

A few yards past the last door, the passageway turned to the left. In the distance, he could see a thin glowing line low to the floor.

A door, he thought. Another way out. But did the light mean there was someone on the other side?

Stepping lightly, he approached the light. It was a door all right. There was enough illumination for him to make out that much. But unlike the other doors, this one was made of wooden planks held together with iron strips at the top and bottom. It looked old, perhaps not as old as the building itself, but a century or two wasn’t out of the question.

Instead of a knob, it had a ring, also iron. Unless it was locked on the other side, all he had to do was pull it.

He dropped silently down onto all fours, and moved his ear up to the gap along the bottom.

There was only the stillness of an empty space on the other side.

As he started to rise, a voice yelled out in the distance. He put his ear back to the gap, but instantly knew the noise was not coming from the other side of the door. It was coming from back down the corridor in the direction of the cells.

He rushed back toward where the hall made its turn, but just before he got there, the corridor lights came on. He jammed to a stop, feeling suddenly exposed. He looked back at the wooden door. It was still closed. Whoever turned on the lights had done so at the other end.

“Hey! Hey!” the voice yelled. “Can’t I get some water? I need some water.”

Now that he was closer, Nate could tell the yeller was Peter. What the hell was he doing? The guards were on their way in now. How was Nate supposed to get everyone out?

That bastard, he realized. Peter was purposely drawing the guards’ attention so that Nate couldn’t come back for him and the others.

“Might be better if you get out and go for help.”

What choice did Nate have now? Even if he waited where he was, and tried to release the others when the coast was clear, he had a very strong suspicion that Peter would call out again the moment he knew Nate was close.

Damn you, Peter.

He returned to the door and grabbed the metal ring. When he heard Peter yell out again, he pulled the door open enough so he could peek through to the other side. Another corridor, empty. He opened it more, passed through, and shut it behind him.

Get away and get help. That was his mission now.

The sound of Peter’s yells dropped to near nothing as he moved away from the door. The new corridor led him to a set of stairs that ended at a doorway two floors up. He listened for any sounds of life before opening it. He found himself in a small stone room, not much larger than the cell he’d been in. The difference was that this room had windows to either side, and another entrance straight in front of him. He could also feel a breeze, because there was no door covering the other opening, and no glass in the windows.

Looking out the window to the left, he could see the courtyard below, and realized the room he was in was on top of the wall that surrounded it. To confirm this, he eased over to the other entrance. Beyond it was a four-foot-wide walkway that ran down the center of the wall, lined on each side by a two-foot-high, one-foot-thick lip. To the left was the courtyard, and to the right a narrow sandy beach lining the ocean. He had to be in some kind of old sea fort that had been restored but hadn’t held up so well.

The defensive wall curved around the courtyard and disappeared behind the bulk of the central building. Though the night was moonless, he could make out the dark shapes of trees and bushes in that direction. It had to be the land side. That was the way he needed to go if he had any hope of finding a phone or a radio.

He moved through the doorway, but stayed close to the building to cut down any silhouette he might make against the night sky. He checked the beach to his right. It was a good twenty-five feet down. Not a distance he wanted to jump, but he might be able to scale the stone wall if he were careful. Centuries of storms and sea air had eaten away at it, creating cracks and nooks he could use for his hands and feet. From there he’d have to walk around, fully exposed, until he reached the far side.

The quicker route, and the one that would get him to the cover of the jungle sooner, would be to stay on top of the wall, then scale down it on the land side. He’d be able to get a better view of his surroundings from there, too. The drawback was that moving along the wall could expose him more than the longer walk along the beach.

He examined the courtyard, looking for any movements or indications that someone was there. It took him less than a minute to spot the guard standing next to one of the doors of the central structure. As he watched the man, he noted that the guard seemed to be paying more attention to the other courtyard entrances than to the wall.

If Nate stayed low behind the walkway’s lip, he should be okay.

He crouched down so that he was on his hands and feet, and moved onto the walkway. It was an awkward way to travel, but no alarm was raised.

When he reached the point he was aiming for, he peeked over the lip, back into the courtyard, and relaxed. The angle was such that the guard was now out of sight.

Nate stretched his muscles, and stood up so he could take a quick look around before he started down. He’d been right-he had a much better view.

But what he saw was not even close to what he’d hoped for.

As he’d noted earlier, the fort was surrounded on three sides by water. He could now also see that the coastlines ran parallel to each other past the fort and along both sides of the jungle area before they disappeared into the night. The problem was, they didn’t stay that way for long. Though he couldn’t see where it happened, he knew they met back together just a few miles away, because in the distance, he could see starlight playing on the ocean.

He’d suspected he was on an island. He just hadn’t realized how small it was.

Doesn’t matter, he told himself. You’ve still got to try.

He looked at the jungle for another few seconds, then lowered himself over the edge of the wall and started climbing down.