The Nowhere Man

52 Some Kind of Advantage

Despite the drugs Evan was awake and alert with the first light of dawn. He lay on his back. Waiting. He sensed the planks compressing in the hall before he heard them creak. Dex could put some serious weight down on a floor.

The dead bolts clanked open, one after another, and the hinges gave a soft complaint as the mahogany door swung inward. Evan rolled over, feigning sleep, his eyelids cracked enough to register Dex’s massive shape entering the room.

His cinder-block fist raised the transmitter to aim at Evan, and Evan reacted appropriately, jolting awake, shuddering on the sheets, clawing at his shock collar. It was, he thought, a convincing performance.

He’d had plenty of practice.

Dex led him into the hall where Xalbador waited, less-lethal shotgun in hand.

Not a word was exchanged as Evan headed to the stairs and wound his way down.

Dead man walking.

When they reached the ground floor, Evan caught a whiff of espresso in the air, the distant murmur of chatter. The library was empty, but a few early risers had gathered in the sunroom — the guests being catered to, pampered like Sotheby’s VIPs at a pre-auction reception. The Great White Sark held forth by the banquette, swapping war stories with the others. The Widow Lakshminarayanan sipped tea in a corner, sitting ramrod straight. Conversation ceased as Evan passed by, all those sets of eyes lifting to trace his path across the doorway.

Candy McClure and Orphan M were conspicuously absent. Even if Van Sciver chose to deploy Orphans in pairs these days, they were built to operate alone. Old habits were hard to break. It was tough to imagine them chewing biscotti with war criminals and drug lords.

Evan kept on. He sensed Xalbador’s shotgun trained at the space between his shoulder blades. Dex kept several paces ahead of him, walking sideways to hold him in view, the pistol dwarfed by his hand. Their three-man procession was coming up on the ballroom now. Evan felt his skin tingle as it did before a mission kicked off. Not fear, no, nor even the stress of anticipation, but an overwhelming sense of his own aliveness. He hated to admit how much he loved this, especially given the horrors he would face if he failed.

His vision sharpened until he could make out the knuckle grooves on Dex’s trigger finger. He sensed the cadence of Xalbador’s footsteps, the vibrations through the marble floor. Reading the rhythm of the men’s movements, he predicted and gauged and prepared.

The makeshift garrote stuffed in his sock pressed coolly into his flesh.

They turned the corner, their boots tapping the hardwood. The rows of empty chairs were set out neatly, as if in anticipation of a wedding service. The Lexan vault waited. They crossed the freshly polished spot on the floor where David had bled out.

Ten more steps.

Evan used the chirp of Xalbador’s boots against the floor to measure the man’s distance behind him. He slipped a hand into his pocket, digging for his bootlaces, curling his fingers around one side of the improvised noose.

Six more steps.

His muscles tensed. His cells sang. It would come down to instinct, timing, and luck.

Four.

The high-set windows threw Xalbador’s shadow forward next to Evan. He flicked his eyes over, reading the dark outline, noting the shotgun’s position. Letting his right hand dangle, he gripped his jeans at the thigh and gave a little tug, the pant leg riding up a few inches, putting the garrote within reach.

Dex cast a last glance back at Evan before pivoting, his hand starting to rise to the sensor panel beneath the big steel handle of the Lexan door.

Two steps.

One.

The fine hairs on Dex’s arm glistened in the morning light. His big hand spread, that tattooed grimace growing even broader, the blood-dripping canines coming clear. Everything moved in slow motion, as if Evan were again living inside that single drop from René’s syringe.

Dex’s giant palm touched the panel.

The inset screen flared to life, reading the road map of veins beneath the skin.

MATCH.

The lugs released.

The foot-thick door swung open. Three inches. Six. A foot. Dex’s hand was still raised, the flared fingers starting to retract.

Evan yanked the bootlace noose from his pocket. He stepped not for Dex but past him, lunging for the widening gap in the door. As he skimmed by Dex’s shoulder, he lassoed the still-raised hand. Xalbador shouted, the shotgun aimed, but Evan had already put Dex between himself and the barrel.

Dex wheeled, disoriented by the fact that Evan was fleeing into the Lexan room instead of away from it. Dex was spinning in one direction, Evan in the other. With his free hand, Evan grabbed for the .45.

And missed.

For an instant he tumbled toward the Lexan vault, his left hand gripping the end of the bootlaces, his right flailing.

Then the slack came out of the laces.

The noose cinched around Dex’s wrist. His arm snapped straight. Evan held on with everything he had.

His momentum carried him past the razor-sharp edge of the doorway, across the threshold, into the vault. He seized the inside door handle and slammed the bulky door shut as hard as he could.

It hammered Dex above the junction of his wrist, nearly cleaving the arm in two.

Dex’s mouth stretched wide, his lips wavering. It was really strange to see a man scream and not make a sound.

Evan put all his weight against the handle, pinning Dex’s arm. He’d released the noose, but the knot held, the laces embedded in the flesh at the base of Dex’s hand a few inches below the massive wound.

Holding the blood in the veins.

Now he just had to remove the hand.

Keeping his grip on the door handle, Evan ripped the garrote free of his sock. Dex reared back, the weighty door swinging open, then smashing shut again on the hatchet wound of the wrist. His mouth spread in another silent roar, but by then Evan had already looped the piano wire around the arm, sinking it into the deepening gash above the wrist.

Gripping the roughly hewn wooden handles, Evan twisted the garrote. Ligaments snapped. The bones of the wrist started to separate from the base of the ulna and radius. It was grisly, hard-going work.

Evan sensed a blur of movement overhead, found himself looking up into the barrel of the .45. He jerked his face to the side as Dex pulled the trigger, the percussion so loud that for a moment Evan thought the round had in fact penetrated his head.

But he heard it ping behind him — and then again and again, ricocheting endlessly around the small box. It seemed only a matter of time before the bullet would find him.

Evan was dangling from the garrote’s handles, wrenching with all his might, yanking Dex against the door to hold it shut. Dex shoved himself back, trying to widen the gap and position himself for another shot.

And still the round pinged and pinged.

Xalbador gripped Dex around the midsection, fighting a tug-of-war over the mangled arm. Dex jammed the gun through the gap again, and Evan clustered both ends of the garrote in one hand and grabbed for the barrel with the other, forcing the bore to the side of his head.

The gun bucked powerfully — he felt the ache in the bones of his fingers — but didn’t fire. He squeezed the slide assembly even tighter, keeping the pistol from cycling. As long as he held on, it wouldn’t be able to eject the round it had already fired. Torquing his wrist, he managed to wrench the .45 free of Dex’s grip. The pistol skittered across the Lexan floor behind him.

The first shot was still rocketing around the enclosure, whining and cracking off the walls. He felt the air move, the bullet riffling the hair on his head, missing by a whisper.

The world was nothing but the ringing aftermath of a struck bell; his head felt thick and dead, stuffed with rags. Dex reared back again, Xalbador yanking him, the door yawning wide. Evan’s fists ached around the wooden handles. His boots slipped on the slick Lexan. Dex and Xalbador were going to rip him right out of the box.

He lost his feet, swinging around on his ass, pulled by the garrote toward the threshold. At the last minute, he threw a boot wide, wedging it against the doorframe, and hurled himself back.

The tendons snapped audibly. Evan toppled backward. The severed hand fell free, slapping the floor.

Dex and Xalbador cartwheeled away, Dex’s stump flinging up, trailing crimson mist. Evan heard the bullet zing overhead and then silence — it must’ve flown out the open door. He scrambled forward, reaching for the metal handle and slamming the thick door.

Dex rolled on the floor, clutching his arm. Xalbador crawled out from beneath him, transmitter in hand, trying in vain to electrify Evan’s shock collar.

Holding the door shut, Evan groped behind him for the severed hand. His fingers cupped Dex’s. He gathered the hand in and slapped it against the sensor panel. It leaked blood, but the noose had held, still cinched around the base of the hand above the jagged line of the wrist.

The sensor whirred and processed. Had the bootlaces held enough blood in the hand for the sensor to read the vein pattern?

Xalbador was on his feet now.

The screen lit up.

READING.

READING.

In his peripheral vision, Evan sensed bodies pouring through the doorway, backup arriving.

Finally command buttons littered the screen — LOCK, OPEN, DISABLE, RECODE.

Evan thumbed RECODE.

Xalbador lunged for the handle.

Evan spread his own hand on the panel. The screen flashed green, and the lugs engaged with a clang an instant before Xalbador curled his hands around the handle.

Xalbador tore at the steel bar, his flailing locks spattering sweat across the Lexan. He stopped flailing. His shoulders sank.

He and Evan stared at each other through the transparent door.

Behind Xalbador, Dex rose to his feet and aimed his muted screams at the elaborate chandelier. Bidders and guards sprinted into the ballroom, jostling and shouting and overturning chairs. At the head of the pack, René halted, the sole point of stillness in the room. His face was flushed in streaks along the lines of plastic surgeries past. A cold rage cemented his jaw.

He glared at Evan, locked safely inside the Lexan vault. Removing his transmitter from a pocket inside his suit jacket, he aimed it at Evan and squeezed.

Evan took a step back, picked up the .45, righted the folding chair, and sat.

René squeezed the transmitter again, then hurled it aside. He charged across to the vault and tugged on the handle, his thin hair cascading over his forehead. Then he stopped, sweeping his bangs back into place. “So you’ve locked yourself in your own cell.” His voice, filtered through the panel, had a tinny quality. “You think that gives you some kind of advantage?”

Evan leaned to pick up Dex’s severed hand from the floor. The blood-dripping scowl inked on the skin was now augmented with the real thing.

The alligator skin below René’s left eye twitched. A squiggle of a vein showed at his temple. “We still have you trapped.” He coughed out a laugh that was equal parts fury and disbelief. “How exactly do you see this ending?”

Evan lifted Dex’s florid scowl. And placed it over his mouth.