The survivor

Sixty-Nine

Red Mask stood in the east wing of St Paul’s Hospital and looked through the windowed door that led into the Critical Care Unit. In there was Patricia Kwan.

His next target.

He was dressed in janitor’s clothes, which he’d taken off the old man he’d killed in the next wing. He also wore latex gloves — so he would leave no prints — and a gown overtop his clothing. With only one good arm, the baggy gown hampered him in reaching his pistol, but the uniform was necessary to enter the CCU. So he left the back straps loose.

It was the best he could do.

On the other side of the doorway, Patricia Kwan’s room was under guard. Red Mask had expected no different. A young cop, about twenty-five years old, leaned on the doorframe. He looked bored. With the exception of the nurses and orderlies who roamed the walkways, no one else was around.

And this was to Red Mask’s benefit.

He carried the jar and duct tape in his left hand. The weight of his tools was not much, minimal really, but the stress it put on his shoulder was alarming. He closed his mind to the pain and focused on the task at hand.

In his right hand, he carried a small oxygen tank, one he’d stolen from the cancer ward. He had taken two of them, and purposely left one by the CCU entrance doors. The tanks were pressurised and heavy, about thirty pounds.

It would be more than enough.

He waited patiently for the nurse to leave, then swiped the keypad with the janitor’s access card and entered the Critical Care Unit. He looked at nothing as he made his way down the corridor, just kept his eyes straight ahead, as if he were a tired man finishing his shift. When he neared the cop, he glanced left. Saw that the man wasn’t paying attention.

It was the only opening he needed.

Mustering as much strength as his shoulder would allow, he swung the oxygen canister; the cop spotted the movement and raised his arms — but the reaction came far too late. The oxygen tank impacted with his face, smashing his head into the door and breaking his nose. He dropped to the floor, as limp as rice noodles.

Red Mask took no chances. He drove the tank into the cop’s face one more time, then opened up Patricia Kwan’s door and scanned the room. When he saw no one but the woman on the bed inside the room, confidence filled him. He placed the jar and tape down on the nearest counter, then set the oxygen tank down on the floor, just inside the doorway.

He dragged the cop inside and removed the man’s pistol. He released the mag, racked the slide, and expelled the chambered bullet. Then he threw the Sig Sauer in the garbage can and dragged the cop into the washroom. When the door closed, he and Patricia Kwan were alone again.

It was time to get to work.

He grabbed the duct tape and jar and walked up to the bed. Patricia Kwan lay still under the blankets, locked between the raised chrome bed railings. It seemed so long ago that he had last seen her. How odd it felt.

And how wonderful.

Patricia’s face was whiter than before. The skin now sagged around her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell in slow intervals. Tubes ran from her wrists and forearms to three different machines. One of them reminded Red Mask of the electric current machines the guards had used to obtain confessions in Section 21. The thought manifested dark emotions, and he killed them immediately.

Emotion was weakness.

The bed was too high. Red Mask lowered it with the electronic control, then leaned over Patricia Kwan. She sensed the movement, and her face tightened. Red Mask smiled.

He could bring her back to consciousness.

First he put on two pairs of latex gloves, then tore off a strip of duct tape. He placed it across her mouth, then grabbed her wounded shoulder and gave it a vigorous squeeze.

Patricia jolted like she’d been electrocuted. Her eyes opened. They scanned the room, stopped on him, and widened. She jerked under the sheets, and one of the machines made a high-pitched, beeping sound.

‘Be still,’ Red Mask ordered. He pointed to the tape covering her lips. ‘I am removing tape. Understand — ’ he held up the jar of clear fluid ‘- this is nitric acid. Nothing more painful in world. You scream, I make you swallow.’

Patricia Kwan’s eyes filled with terror. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

‘Understand?’

She nodded slowly, and Red Mask peeled back the tape.

‘Please,’ her voice was weak, scratchy, ‘I’ll do anything. Anything you want. Don’t kill me.’

Red Mask placed the jar on the bedside table, directly within Patricia’s line of sight. ‘I not lie to you, Patricia Kwan. You will die. But you can go in pain or no pain — the choice is for you.’

Her response was a whisper: ‘Please — God — why? Why are you doing this?’

Red Mask just looked at her and tried to analyse the twinge of emotion he was experiencing. Something was stirring inside of him, somewhere deep, a tickling sensation. Like a name he could not recall.

‘You show great disrespect. That will not — cannot — be tolerated.’ He gave her an odd look. ‘Do you think no one would discover?’

Patricia Kwan’s eyes took on a distant look. ‘But I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m innocent!’

‘No one is innocent.’

Red Mask looked over at the clock. Already several minutes had passed. Soon the nurse would return. Seconds were valuable. He leaned forward, so that he was looking right down at her, and he suppressed the pain he felt, for there was no time for pain.

‘I ask you one more time, Patricia Kwan.’

‘Please, I-’

‘Where is daughter? Where is Riku Kwan?’