Jack Mars - Target Zero

The restraint on his left wrist allowed a little less than a foot of mobility for his arm, but if he stretched his hand to its limit he could reach the first few inches of the bedside stand. Its tabletop was simple, smooth particle board, but the underside was rough as sandpaper. Over the course of a grueling, aching four hours the night prior, Rais gently rubbed the pen’s clip back and forth along the table’s underside, careful not to make much noise. With every motion he feared the clip might slip from his fingers, or the guards would notice the movement, but his room was dark and they were deep in conversation. He worked and worked until he had sharpened the clip to a needle-like point. Then the clip disappeared beneath the sheets as well, next to the nib tip.

He knew from snippets of conversation that there would be three night nurses on the med-surg unit tonight, Elena included, with another two on-call if need be. They, plus his guards, meant at least five people he would have to deal with, and a maximum of seven.

No one among the medical staff liked to attend to him much, knowing what he was, so they checked in fairly infrequently. Now that Elena had come and gone, Rais knew he had somewhere between sixty and ninety minutes before she might return.

His left arm was held with a standard hospital restraint, what professionals sometimes refer to as “four-pointers.” It was a soft blue cuff around his wrist with a tight, white, buckled nylon strap around that, the other end firmly attached to the steel railing of his bed. Because of the severity of his crimes, his right wrist was handcuffed.

The pair of guards outside were conversing in German. Rais listened carefully; the one on the left, Luca, seemed to be complaining that his wife was getting fat. Rais almost scoffed; Luca was far from fit himself. The other, a man named Elias, was younger and athletic, but drank coffee in doses that should have been lethal to most humans. Every night, between ninety minutes and two hours into their shift, Elias would call the night guard up so that he could relieve himself. While away, Elias would step outside for a cigarette, so that with the bathroom break meant he was usually gone between eight and eleven minutes. Rais had spent the last several nights silently counting the seconds of Elias’s absences.

It was a very narrow window of opportunity, but one for which he was prepared.

He reached beneath his sheets for the sharpened clip and held it in the fingertips of his left hand. Then, carefully, he tossed it in an arc over his body. It landed deftly in the palm of his right hand.

Next would come the hardest part of his plan. He pulled his wrist so that the handcuff chain was taut, and while holding it that way he twisted his hand and worked the sharpened tip of the clip into the keyhole of the cuff around the steel railing. It was difficult and awkward, but he had escaped handcuffs before; he knew the catch mechanism inside was designed so that a universal key could open nearly any pair, and knowing the inner workings of a lock meant simply making the right adjustments to trigger the pins inside. He had to keep the chain taut, though, to keep the cuff from clanking against the railing and alerting his guards.

It took him nearly twenty minutes of twisting, turning, taking short breaks to alleviate his aching fingers and trying anew, but finally the lock clicked and the cuff slid open. Rais carefully unhooked it from the railing.

One hand was free.

He reached over and hastily unbuckled the restraint on his left.

Both hands were free.

He stowed the clip under the sheets and removed the top half of the pen, gripping it in his palm so that only the sharp nib was exposed.

Outside his door, the younger officer stood suddenly. Rais held his breath and pretended to be asleep as Elias peered in on him.

“Call Francis, would you?” Elias said in German. “I’ve got to piss.”

“Sure,” Luca said with a yawn. He radioed down to the hospital’s night guard, who was ordinarily stationed behind the front desk on the first floor. Rais had seen Francis plenty of times; he was an older man, late fifties, early sixties perhaps, with a thin frame. He carried a gun but his movements were slow.

It was exactly what Rais had been hoping for. He didn’t want to have to fight the younger police officer in his still-recovering state.

Three minutes later Francis appeared, in his white uniform and black tie, and Elias hurried off to the bathroom. The two men outside the door exchanged pleasantries as Francis took Elias’s plastic seat with a heavy sigh.

It was time to act.

Rais carefully slid to the end of the bed and put his bare feet to the cold tile. It had been some time since he had used his legs, but he was confident that his muscles had not atrophied to a state beyond what he needed them for.

He stood carefully, quietly—and then his knees buckled. He gripped the edge of the bed for support and shot a glance toward the door. No one came; the voices continued. The two men hadn’t heard anything.

Rais stood shakily, panting, and took a few silent steps. His legs were weak, to be sure, but he had always been strong when needed, and he needed to be strong now. His hospital gown flowed around him, open at the back. The immodest garment would only impede him, so he tugged it off, standing unabashedly naked in the hospital room.

The nib cap in his fist, he took a position just behind the open door, and he let out a low whistle.

Both men heard it, apparent by the sudden scraping of chair legs as they rose from their seats. Luca’s frame filled the doorway as he peered into the dark room.

“ Mein Gott! ” he murmured as he hastily entered, noticing the empty bed.

Francis followed, his hand on the holster of his gun.

As soon as the older guard was past the threshold, Rais leapt forward. He jammed the nib cap into Luca’s throat and twisted, tearing a berth in his carotid. Blood sprayed liberally from the open wound, some of it splashing the opposite wall.

He let go of the nib and rushed Francis, who was struggling to free his gun. Unclip, unholster, safety off, aim —the older guard’s reaction was slow, costing him several precious seconds that he simply did not have.

Rais struck two blows, the first one upward just below the belly button, immediately followed by a downward blow to the solar plexus. One forced air into the lungs, while the other forced air out, and the sudden, jarring effect it had on a confused body was generally blurred vision and sometimes loss of consciousness.

Francis staggered, unable to breathe, and sank to his knees. Rais spun behind him, and with one clean motion he broke the guard’s neck.

Luca gripped his throat with both hands as he bled out, gurgles and slight gasps rising in his throat. Rais watched and counted the eleven seconds until the man lost consciousness. Without stopping the blood flow he would be dead in under a minute.

He quickly relieved both guards of their guns and put them on the bed. The next phase of his plan would not be easy; he had to sneak down the hall, unseen, to the supply closet where there would be spare scrubs. He couldn’t very well leave the hospital in Francis’s recognizable uniform, or Luca’s now-blood-soaked one.

He heard a male voice from down the hall and froze.

It was the other officer, Elias. So soon? Anxiety rose in Rais’s chest. Then he heard a second voice—the night nurse, Elena. Apparently Elias had skipped his cigarette break to chat with the pretty young nurse, and now they were both heading down the hall toward his room. They would pass by it in mere moments.

He would prefer not to have to kill Elena. But if it was a choice between him and her, she would have die.