Drummond regained consciousness, but his vision remained cloudy. Flint knelt beside him, along with King, who seemed to have fully recovered from the succinylcholine.
“They said he was good, but who could’ve anticipated this?” King was saying.
The words came at Drummond as if through a bullhorn. He yielded to the need to vomit, letting it spill out of his lips and, purposefully, down his shirtfront.
The rest of the infirmary came back into focus as the marines each grabbed him by an armpit, hoisting him to his feet. Flint patted Drummond’s shorts in search of a weapon. Genevieve stood by, still gripping the bed rail, at the ready.
“Cheee-rist,” Flint said, turning his nose away from the vomit.
Drummond staggered. With intent.
Flint lost his grip on him.
Drummond shot his right hand into his shirt pocket, drawing out one of the succinylcholine syringes he’d gathered from the floor. In the same motion, he swung it into Flint’s shoulder, then popped the plunger.
Flint whirled around, swinging.
Drummond ducked the fist.
As Flint reared back for another try, he dropped unconscious into Drummond’s arms, providing a shield against King, whose gun was aimed at Drummond.
“That’s enough, Mr. Clark,” he said. “Set him down.”
Drummond flung the sedated corporal toward King, who instinctively reached to catch the younger man. At the same time, Drummond dove at King, jabbing a second syringe into the sergeant’s bicep.
King threw a heavyweight blow to Drummond’s jaw.
Again, the room began to fade to white.
Drummond flailed, catching the edge of the examination table to keep from falling.
King plucked the needle free of his arm. He retrained his gun barrel. “Hands in the sky.”
With effort, Drummond raised his arms.
“Now back against the wall and-” King teetered.
Drummond snatched the Glock away from him and whirled toward Genevieve.
Mouth open, she let the bed rail fall, ringing on the floor tile.
“I don’t want to hurt you, believe it or not,” Drummond said.
“Why should I believe you?” She had to shout over the wail of the arriving ambulance.
“I might be able to convince you if I had a minute.” He clapped the handcuff that had been intended for him onto her right wrist. “But I don’t.”
Charlie’s thoughts were whirling like a roulette wheel, the ball popping from anguish to denial, when the detention room door swung inward. Stepping clear of it, he heard an odd pop behind him. Something buzzed past his head. A bullet hole appeared in the doorframe, venting smoke.
“Sniper.” Drummond beckoned from the corridor. “Hurry.”
Charlie set aside his joy at seeing his father to run from the room, just as a second bullet shattered the window, turning the door’s upper hinge to shrapnel.
Drummond limped down the corridor, leading with a Glock. Charlie scrambled to follow. More glass broke and another bullet disintegrated a tile on the corridor wall.
Charlie caught up with Drummond, who winced with each step. “You okay?” Charlie asked. Nothing short of a garroting would cause Drummond Clark to wince ordinarily.
“I’m better off than him,” said Drummond, pointing ahead to the giant Private First Class Arnold, splayed across the floor, unconscious. “The issue is, he ought to have answered the doorbell by now. We have to get up there before our getaway drivers start thinking it’s fishy that nobody’s come.”
“Our getaway drivers?” Charlie followed Drummond up the short flight of stairs to the consulate’s back entrance.
“You heard the ambulance, right?” Drummond said.
“I heard a siren.”
“With a little convincing, they’ll be our getaway drivers.” Drummond reached into his waistband and passed Charlie a second Glock.
Taking hold of the heavy gun, Charlie felt an uneasiness that had nothing to do with hijacking an ambulance. These days, that was no more intimidating than hailing a taxi. “Won’t an ambulance be kind of conspicuous?”
“We’re going to need them because …” At the landing, Drummond’s heavy coating of perspiration blinked between orange and yellow in the reflection of the ambulance parked outside. Still he appeared eerily pale. “Earlier, I tried to make it seem as if I was having a heart attack,” he continued, his breathing labored. “I may have overplayed the-”
His gun dropped from his hand and bounced down the stairs. He teetered then fell along the same trajectory.