THERE WERE THREE TABLES IN MY LIVING ROOM. LEST THIS be thought cluttered, please keep in mind that the house was open floor plan, the kitchen, dining, and living areas all sweeping into one another. Keep also in mind that one of the tables was the very small chrome Dadox cube on which I kept my business phones. The large oval Thor coffee table was central to the room, planted diagonally in the middle of a luxuriously shaggy white alpaca rug. The third table was a rather cheap Sui, chosen because its light color offset the dark hardwood it stood on, and because its ten inches of height placed its surface just slightly over a foot below the top of the Mies van der Rohe daybed it complemented. That difference in height was perfect for Saturday afternoons when I would sprawl on the daybed while listening to live broadcasts from the Met. Without looking or stretching I could find my espresso, any pastry I might have allowed myself, or a bowl of in-season grapes. On the rare occasions I had dinner company we generally ate on the deck or removed our shoes and sat on the rug at the Thor table.
The men in the room with me at this time had not removed their shoes. Nor had they placed me on the floor and tied my ankles to the thick sculpted end pieces that flowed directly out of the base into the upper surface of the Thor. For that matter, they had not pilloried me on the Dadox cube, arching my back across it, wire running from my neck, lines stretched to my wrists and ankles, the tension of my own muscles keeping my limbs splayed. Instead, they had sat me on the daybed and tied my ankles to the legs of the Sui. Nothing wrong with this arrangement in principle, until the lights went out.
Curling, I hunched my shoulders so that as I rose I would minimize tension on the wire that ran from my neck to my wrists. The weight of my upper body coming forward was not enough to lift me from the daybed, but my ankles had been tied with my feet quite flat against the floor. Pressing down with the muscles in my upper legs, I lifted myself, lunged, and fell over the Sui table atop the man kneeling between my legs with the soldering iron.
For a moment the man was pinned between my body and the table. I heard a clunk that might have been the soldering iron, then a cracking of wood as our combined weight splintered the rather delicate piece and I tumbled, tucking my head, turning my shoulder, feeling the wire dig into my throat, the rope on my ankles snagging before slipping loose from the broken table legs.
Pain cannot be ignored. However, it can be endured. When necessary, a great deal of pain can be endured. Just ask any mother.
Naked on the floor, in a litter of kindling, third-degree burns on the backs of my knees and inner thighs, I had a moment of instability at the thought of a world that could twice see a man unclothed in such circumstances in the span of a single life. Pain returned me to a semblance of balance. Indeed, I experienced a tremendous amount of pain in silence while listening very carefully for the voice of the man who had been burning me. There was a shuffle of movement that quickly subsided, the other men in the room shifting their positions slightly from where they had been when the lights went out, followed by a single spoken syllable coming from that man on the floor as he made them aware of his own position so as not to end up in the line of fire.
“Here.”
“Here,” as it turned out, was just a foot or two away. I knew this already because one of the protrusions poking his shoulder wasn’t a bit of broken table, was, in fact, one of my toes. But the word did serve a purpose, allowing me to develop a clear mental picture of just where his face was. So that when I lashed out with the heel of my other foot, I felt the very distinct sensation of a man’s nose caving in.
He made another sound, long and loud, and I used it to cover the noise I made as I kicked both legs high into the air, brought them down, and rolled up to my feet, pulling the wire yet deeper into my flesh.
The initial shock of darkness was fading from my eyes. The canopy of stars that might have given some light during a typical blackout was screened by the smoke that was capping the basin after a day of fires. That left the fires themselves to illuminate the room. A handful of blazes, flickering, none closer than half a mile. There was little at all that could be seen. Shadows of various thickness.
I changed my ground, keeping close to the north wall to avoid the spot where the floor creaked, and scurried to the kitchen. There was similar shifting happening in the living and dining areas. The scream of the man whose face I’d ruined had passed, settling into a series of moans and grunts, punctuated by gurgles as the blood ran out of his sinuses into his throat and he hacked it up so as not to drown.
The other three would be attempting to seal the room. The one who had been standing watch at the windows would be very near that same position to cover the glass door. In fact, I could see a small hump of darkness against the slightly brighter darkness outside, not a regular part of the room’s silhouette. The man who had been going through my possessions would be moving to block the hall that led back to the bedrooms and bathrooms. He had the greatest distance to traverse, the most obstacles to avoid. And he would, no doubt, make the most noise. The battle-scarred man would position himself at the entryway that opened from the front door into the living area. A short direct path that would put him closest to me.
I crouched behind the kitchen island; heard when the man crossing the room stepped into the wreckage of the table and cursed involuntarily; felt the surge in the room’s tension as his coworkers mentally scolded him; and gently ran my fingers over the kitchen tools hanging on the side of the island until I was fully confident that I understood the orientation of the poultry shears on their hook. Lifting it free, I undid the clasp at the end of the grips with my pinkie. The spring bolt opened silently. I drew a long, slow breath and, with a minimum of arching, slipped the upward-curving lower blade between the wire and the small of my back. Nonetheless, the noose around my neck had been drawn beyond the point where it would allow any more arching at all. Tugged a final three centimeters, it sealed my larynx. The wire dropped into the bone notch at the base of the lower blade, I squeezed, there was a moment of resistance, and the wire snapped with a clear twang.
The reaction was immediate. The floor squeaked.
Yes, it may not seem very much, but it was a squeak that revealed a great deal of subtext. First, it told me that either the battle-scarred man or the man blocking off the back of the house was approaching me. Second, the fact that I’d heard no footsteps told me that whoever it was had removed his shoes. Third, it told me they were not inclined to simply open fire on me. This final point suggesting that there was more question and answer left to engage in should they recapture me.
Sufficiently motivated, I hurt myself. I inflicted this pain on myself by lying on my back, drawing my knees up, curling tightly, and slipping my bound hands under my bottom and down the length of my legs. Being naked would usually make this maneuver much easier than it would be clothed, but the friction on my burns more than compensated for the case. It was also impossible to execute without making a great amount of slithery noise. Noise that drew a response in the form of a quick patter of footfalls.
I still couldn’t breathe. It was that fact that had caused the urgency with which I brought my hands from behind my back. I’d hoped the first thing I’d be doing with them was to dig the wire out of the rut it had worn in my neck. Instead, I joined them together at my chest in a prayerful gesture as I came to my knees.
When the man crossing the room came around the island, he came low, arms spread, a knife in his right fist, blade pointing down the length of his forearm, edge facing out. Ready to cut or stab, or catch an incoming blade. An advanced knife-fighting technique.
Intimately close, I could see the shadow of him quite well. I’ve no doubt he could see me even better. At sixty, one does not play games with the southern California sun, I’d not had a tan in decades. I was, I daresay, pale as a ghost. With such an excellent target at hand, he attacked, coming closer yet, leading with the blade, a slash that was meant to drive me flopping onto my back as I tried to avoid it. From that position I might scuttle farther away and into the arms of the man by the glass door. A pitiful defense, but reasonable, as the only other option was to fall forward at his feet, fair game for him to drop his knee into the back of my neck and pin me while his friends came to bind me.
I fell forward.
Things went awry for my attacker only when I separated my forearms and exposed the curved blades of the poultry shears I’d been hiding. The shears are made by Wüsthof. Stainless steel, the lower blade has a serrated edge. I’d allowed them to spring open a few centimeters as I brought them down on his right foot. When they sliced through his instep and out his sole, both tips bit into the hardwood floor that extended into the kitchen. Why a man would dress entirely in black but wear white athletic socks is beyond me.
I didn’t stay to disable him further and search him for guns. I took it on faith that he’d not have attacked me without having first set his firearms aside. They didn’t know if I might have retrieved a gun myself, but they certainly weren’t going to risk supplying me with one. And there was no hurry as far as killing him. I knew where he was and where he would be for at least the next several moments.
I shifted ground again. We all did. Those of us free to do so.
The two men I’d not incapacitated would be changing to firing positions. Their initial advantage over me had been numbers, firepower, and well-being. Their need to capture me alive had negated that firepower. My survival compulsion was compensating for the damage that had been inflicted upon me. And the numbers were beginning to even out. Seeing as my advantages were my knowledge of the terrain and the desperate nature of my situation, they would be calculating the risks and rewards involved in taking a few shots when the opportunity presented itself, letting the chips fall as they would.
A tattoo of finger snaps went back and forth across the room as they established who would cover which fields of fire. Privy to this code, the injured men would flatten themselves on the floor to avoid stray bullets.
I was breathing again. I’d accomplished this feat with no small discomfort. After digging the wire noose from my neck and pulling it over my head, I indulged myself in air. Opening my mouth wide, minimizing the risk that I might gasp.
Crossing the room to my new hiding place, I’d avoided the alpaca rug. I wasn’t concerned about bloodstains, it was well ruined already, but I was not so pale that I could blend with that whiteness, and in the dark it would have revealed me all too clearly. Indeed, at the edge of the rug I could see the black cube of a Shuttle computer I’d used to teach myself Linux. One of the bits of hardware they had taken from my office to be searched for data that might pertain to my suspicious behavior in Afronzo Junior’s vicinity.
The wire noose had a tail of about a half meter. The wire, while of a thick gauge, was flexible. I opened the noose a slight bit, took aim, tossed it underhand, and heard it give the slightest of clicks as it dropped over the computer and nicked a corner.
No one opened fire, indicating either that they had not heard the sound or that it was too faint to allow for any accuracy. I made up for that faintness by yanking hard on the wire with a sweep of my arm that sent the Shuttle clattering onto the wood floor in the direction of the glass wall. A heartbeat’s pause, followed by a series of three well-spaced shots that traced the path of the computer, another pause, and a fourth shot placed just ahead of where the computer came to rest, another pause, and a fifth shot placed just behind the point where the computer began its journey. That final point was the one I’d occupied a scant second before.
But I was no longer there.
I was pinned in the corner of the room farthest from the front door. The jumble of my computer equipment, and the man who had been lookout, were between myself and the glass door. And I would have to climb over the length of the daybed if I wanted to reach the hallway to the back of the house or front door.
Cornered, if that is not redundant.
The shots had come from the battle-scarred side of the room. In such tight quarters his flash suppressor had done little to hide his position. Irrelevant, as I’d not had a gun in my hand with which to return fire. And he’d shifted yet again, in any case. Still, it seemed clear he was covering the living area and at least half the dining area. The last shot he’d fired had punched a hole in the thick glass wall. I mentally drew a line from that point to where he’d been when he pulled the trigger. The remaining man would be covering the other half of the dining area and the kitchen. And he would be doing so from a point just beyond where that last round had struck the glass.
Of course, I couldn’t be certain of any of this. I’d been tortured for hours. The wounds inflicted on me were still causing extreme pain. I’d been deprived of oxygen, and I’d lost blood. The room was dark and littered with objects and the remains of the Sui table. The two men I’d disabled were not by any means crippled and would likely be reentering the fray. My circumstances were dire and I was beyond desperate. My strategic evaluations had to be considered questionable, at best.
Thank God I had a winged cat taxidermy sculpture in my hands.
The artist who created the winged cat had been amused when I told her why I wanted one of some girth. She’d embraced the concept, along with the various custom features I’d requested. She told me she “enjoyed the James Bond irony.” I didn’t tell her that there was nothing ironic about the piece at all. To my sensibility, a dead cat with crow’s wings stitched to its back and a rocket pistol concealed in its hollow carcass was a grim foreshadow of what humanity had in store for itself.
To be clear, what was inside the winged cat was not an actual rocket pistol. It was, in fact, a Lund and Company Variable Velocity Weapons System. The “rocket” nomenclature was popular among bloggers with a fascination for fanciful weapons technology but little understanding of actual weapons. A VVW was essentially a self-contained launch system for both lethal and nonlethal projectiles. Buttons on the side of the gun determined how much fuel would be released into the combustion chamber behind the projectile when the trigger was pulled. It did not at all fire rockets, which are self-propelled. Rather, a controlled explosion, localized within the weapon, created a preselected muzzle velocity that could be changed from round to round. Designed for use in combat environments where civilians and hostiles mixed and were difficult to differentiate between, only a handful of VVW prototypes were ever produced. When I’d heard that one had come on the market a year prior, I’d spent a foolish amount of money to own it. It came with only a handful of the specialized ammunition and two refills of the fuel. Unable to help myself, I’d test-fired half the rounds. Loaded with rubber bullets it was combat-effective nonlethal as close as five meters. Loaded with full metal jacket it was lethal to as far as a thousand meters, though not at all accurate to even a tenth of that range. Multiple vents kept muzzle flash all but nonexistent and minimized sound. Because the amount of propellant was not dictated by the size of the round, a small bullet that loses little of its energy to air resistance could be fired at muzzle velocities generally reserved for high-caliber rifles. Set to red, the VVW can fire a.22-caliber armor-piercing round at one thousand meters per second. Comparable to a.300 Winchester Magnum round fired from an Accuracy International AWM sniper rifle.
I’d placed it inside the winged cat, loaded and primed, the red button depressed. When I slipped my hand into the belly of the cat and pulled the weapon free, I didn’t bother to change the setting in favor of the orange, yellow, or green buttons. My mood quite suited red.
On my belly, in my corner, I aimed under the couch at an angle, using the sound of a man gargling his own blood as a guide. I pulled the trigger, there was a slight flicker under the couch, as if a cap pistol had been fired, a sound like two overstuffed feather pillows being plumped against each other, and an almost instantaneous human grunt, followed by another distinct sound, this one as if a large and very wet paintbrush had been vigorously shaken at a wall.
Despite the vents, the recoil was tremendous. It was just as well my wrists were still bound and I was forced to use a two-hand grip.
Fire was being returned from the battle-scarred man’s side of the room, but with less consideration for decorum this time. I put a stop to this sloppy behavior before it could reach the point of general mayhem. There were ample muzzle flashes. I could see them clearly from the point I’d rolled to after firing my first shot. I took a bead on the ghost of one of the flashes, made a slight adjustment to the right, following the trail he was leaving as he moved and fired, moved and fired, and pulled the trigger again.
Less splatter this time, and an echo of broken crockery. The bullet must have pierced the body armor under his light jacket and struck the inner surface of a ceramic back plate, the bullet and plate both shattering on impact.
There was a respite of silence. Just a faint burble as the last bit of pressure in the battle-scarred man’s circulatory system pumped a few milliliters of blood from the tiny wound that would be in his torso. He’d probably not lose much blood from such a small wound as the one the.22 would leave. But even if it hadn’t fragmented when it hit the plate, the static shock from a bullet traveling at that velocity had no doubt killed him before he dropped.
On red, the VVW would fire only four rounds. Even if I had been tempted by dialing down to gain a few more shots, the symmetry of four men and four projectiles would have stopped me.
The silence wore on the man who had been lookout. He snapped a quick rhythm with his fingers, attempting to strategize. Before the man I’d stabbed in the foot could answer him, I did. The pillow sound again, splatter of paint, and the sharp tink of a crack appearing suddenly in a cold glass when something hot is poured inside. I could only hope that the bullet had expended most of its energy passing through its target and the glass and that it would drop harmlessly to some empty spot in the basin.
The last of them was still behind the kitchen island. One of his socks was no longer white. When I approached, he rose with his knife in one hand and the shears in the other. I ended any suspense by placing the last round in the middle of his chest.
I set the VVW on the island, picked up the bloody poultry shears from where they’d fallen, angled the blades between my wrists, and clipped the wires that bound them. Setting the shears aside, I walked down the hallway to the master bedroom and into the bathroom. In my first-aid cupboard I found gauze bandages, silver sulfadiazine, scissors, tape, an IV needle and hose, and two bags of saline fluid. Standing at the sink, I began using gauze pads to blot pus and blood from the insides and backs of my legs. The pain was intense, largely focused at the edges of the wounds where the burns were only second degree. The nerves at the hearts of the worst of the burns were entirely dead. Still, I’d need to salve and bandage them to stave off infection. And I’d need to rehydrate. And there was other business that needed taking care of.
Tending my hurts, I began plotting a route that would take me from my ruined house to the home of Officer Parker Haas.