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Chapter Nine

Mark Eisele wasn’t sure what time he awoke, but he thought it was midmorning. There were thin bands of light at the edges of the blacked-out window. His night had once again been fitful and hallucinatory, filled with dreams that included Megan and his in-laws, but there’d been something else that kept startling him into consciousness: the sound of gunshots.

On the street or grounds just outside the structure he was kept in, there had been rapid-fire, high-pitched cracks , deep booms , and snapping small-arms fire, along with the revving of engines and occasional shouts. It sounded like the people outside were involved in a skirmish or playing war games not far from his cabin. He wished he could get up from the bed, tear the taped cardboard from the glass of the windows, and look outside.

Then there were the pitiful sounds coming from Spike Rankin in the next cot. Rankin had yet to regain consciousness at any point, as far as Eisele knew, but he seemed to be weakening as the hours and days went on. Rankin didn’t weep or moan from pain, but he issued soft reactive grunts as if someone were applying sudden pressure to his chest. Eisele had called out to him several times, but Rankin hadn’t answered in any way.

No one had brought them anything to eat, for how long? Two days? Three days? Eisele tried to recall how long a human could live without nutrition of any kind, and he couldn’t remember the answer. He knew it was much longer than three days. Eisele wished he could simply google “How long can a human survive without food?” It struck him how vulnerable he felt that he simply couldn’t look at his phone and ask it that question. He hadn’t been without a working smartphone since middle school.

—

While he was hearing gunshots early that morning, Eisele had discovered that he could access water to drink. Someone—Double-A?—had placed a water bladder of some kind on the pillow next to his head. He found that he could turn his head and suck in room-temperature water through a flexible tube. It tasted brackish, but he could feel himself healing from the inside out as the fluid replenished his body. He’d consumed half the bladder, but not enough yet to have to urinate. That would come, and he would welcome it as another step in his recovery. He didn’t want to wet his scrubs that had finally dried out. The pungent odor from his clothing hung in the air within the still, dark room.

Someone—Double-A?—came into the room with their headlamp every four to six hours, and he’d feel a sharp prick on his right forearm. Then he’d drift away. They were drugging him. He assumed it was to keep him quiet and out of it.

He’d only awaken when he’d hear either muted conversations through the door in the next room, Rankin’s animal-like grunts, or gunshots.

How many of them were there? And what were their plans for him? For Rankin?

—

The door opened and the light from the next room hit him in the eyes, making him wince. He hadn’t heard anyone approaching the door, but he recognized Double-A by her silhouette.

She said, “The younger one is awake right now” to someone behind her in the other room. Then, to Eisele, “Good morning. It’s time for your medication.”

“Please—I don’t want any. I think I might be hungry, though.”

“Are you, now?” she asked without kindness.

“I think Mr. Rankin is dying,” Eisele said. “You’ve got to help him.”

Double-A ignored him. She seemed preoccupied by something going on behind her in the lit room. Then she stepped to the side and a lean figure glided into the room as if he were walking on air. It was otherworldly, and Eisele thought he might be seeing things that weren’t there. The man was outside the room one moment, and then he was standing right next to his cot as if he had floated there. Eisele could feel his presence.

“Can we have a little light?” the man asked Double-A over his shoulder. She responded by twisting the lens of a headlamp until it shone into the room. The beam danced up the length of Eisele in the cot, but there was enough ambient glow that he could see more of the man standing next to him.

Eisele realized the man hadn’t been floating after all, but had deftly propelled himself into the room using crutches. Like Double-A, he was dressed in rumpled camo.

“Thank you, Double-A,” the man said to her in a kind voice.

The figure at his cot was in his early thirties; his thin, gaunt, craggy face with sharp facial features was shadowed by the beam of the headlamp. He had high cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and a buzz cut with a growth of beard approximately the same length. The man’s eyes were piercing, and he looked at Eisele with the cool dispassion of a bird of prey.

“My boss is dying,” Eisele said, assuming the man was in charge of the frontier village. “We need to get him to a hospital.”

“That’s out of the question,” the man said quickly.

“I haven’t eaten anything since I’ve been here.”

“You seem to be doing okay.” Without turning toward her, he said, “Double-A, see if you can get him some food. There should be some leftovers in the mess hall.”

“Sure,” Double-A said. “Then it’s time for his medication.”

Eisele asked, “Do you think you could take the cardboard down from the windows? It’s like a cave in here.”

“I’ll think about it, but no promises,” the man said.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Axel.”

“Thank you,” Eisele said. “What was all that shooting about that I heard earlier?”

“Drills.”

“Drills? For what?”

“You ask a lot of questions and make a lot of demands,” Axel said flatly. “You’re lucky we kept you alive. Frankly, there was a debate about it. My commanders voted and it was two to one in favor of keeping you alive. I was with the majority.”

Eisele thought, Commanders? , but didn’t say it.

Instead, Eisele said, “I thank you for that. But I’m really worried about my boss. I think he’s spiraling.”

Axel turned and beheld Spike Rankin in the next cot. As he did so, Rankin grunted weakly.

“I’m not sure we can do much for him at this point,” Axel said. “We’re limited in our field resources, and he looks too far gone.”

“Please,” Eisele said. “Just take him and drop him at an ER somewhere. They might be able to save him. He didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t do anything wrong. We were just scouting for elk when we surprised Double-A and those other guys.”

Eisele was surprised how pitiful and fawning he sounded, even to himself. And by the man’s lack of reaction, he’d not made any headway.

“There might be people looking for me,” Eisele said. “That can’t be good for you.”

“Is that what you think?” the man asked. “Why are you so special?”

Eisele hesitated for a few seconds. Would telling Axel that he was the governor’s son-in-law help or hurt him? Would it cause Axel to release him or decide that he needed to take drastic action immediately? Either way, Eisele chose to keep that arrow in his quiver in case he needed it later.

“I’m not special,” Eisele said. “But I have a family. Three little girls,” he lied. He wanted more children. Megan wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea.

“Don’t you think we all have families?” Axel said. “That doesn’t make you unique.”

Double-A returned with a tray of what looked like meat loaf and mashed potatoes. She placed it on Eisele’s belly. Then she loosened his upper chest restraint and propped several cheap pillows under him so he could sit up and eat. Eisele stared at the plate of food. He wished he was hungry.

“Can you tell me what’s going on up here?” Eisele asked the man. “I swear I won’t say anything to anyone if that’s what you want.”

Axel smiled ruefully and shook his head. Obviously, Eisele’s proposal wasn’t even worth considering.

In his peripheral vision, Eisele could see that Double-A had bent over the next cot and fished out Rankin’s wrist from beneath the covers to check his pulse. She held his wrist for a few moments, then glanced at her wristwatch. “I can hardly get a reading,” she told Axel. “His heartbeat is weak and slow.”

Axel turned to her as she lowered Rankin’s wrist and tucked it back under the sheet. Then, making a sudden decision, Axel raised his own right arm and grasped that crutch with his left hand to hold it steady. He twisted the crutch pad a half turn.

Eisele felt a chill shoot through him as Axel unsheathed a ten-inch stiletto-like pointed blade from the crutch tube. The blade now protruded from Axel’s grip, emerging from between his index and middle finger.

“What are you doing?” Eisele asked. Then, with his voice rising, “Axel? What are you doing? ”

Axel ignored him while he plunged the blade into Rankin’s exposed ear and pushed it deep into his brain, nearly to the crutch pad itself. Eisele was stunned. Even Double-A stepped back and gasped as Rankin’s body erupted with spasmic jerks, until it stopped moving.

Axel withdrew the blade and wiped it clean on Rankin’s blanket, then slid it back into the crutch tube. He said to Double-A, “Get the guys to clear this cot. We might need it later.”

Then, without another word, Axel glided out of the room through the open doorway. He didn’t look back.

Stunned and horrified, Eisele glared at Double-A for confirmation of what he’d just witnessed. He couldn’t speak.

“Time for your medication,” she said while plunging a syringe needle into an open bottle of morphine.