Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

Again the killer shocked him, this time on the base of his neck. Every muscle in his body seemed to contract. His jaw viciously snapped shut, causing him to bite through the side of his tongue and snap off part of a tooth.

"Again, who hired you?"

"The…the Durkins. From Soda Springs. Their son was killed by a truck in Florida…The coroner there thought someone had stolen his bone marrow. It's the truth. I swear it is."

"I'll decide what is and isn't the truth, and if I decide you're messing with me, I swear I'll open you up from ass to eyeball with this thing. Now tell me again, how did you end up in Texas?"

Ben had no trouble making it seem as if he couldn't stand any more of the cattle prod. His situation was hopeless, and all he wanted now was to get out of his life with as little further pain as possible, and to take with him the ort of nobility that would go with not exposing Organ Guard and its devoted founder. He retold the story of the Whitestone Laboratory in Soda Springs, and his almost inadvertent glimpse of the address on the case of blood vials to be shipped to Fadiman.

The shocks became less frequent, though no less terrible. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Vincent motioned his helper to throw Ben into the shower stall again. His chest and abdomen were covered with bile and drool. Unable to stand on rubbery legs, he sat on the grimy tile and supported himself against the wall as the chilly water beat down on him. He extended the shower as long as he could stand it, then unsteadily crawled back to his chair.

Vincent was gone. Beside the chair were a large, clean white towel and a pile of neatly folded clothes — a pair of chinos, a gray tee, thin white socks, and a pair of black, spit-polished high cut boots. The aborigine motioned for him to get dressed.

Ben had wondered how, when his torture was no longer entertaining, he would be terminated. He had expected, even hoped, for a bullet to the brain. Now, he didn't know what to think. Dressing was an excruciating, slow process. His legs were almost too battered and the muscles too spent to bend, there were electric burns over most of his body, and his swollen, bluish fingers were too stiff to handle the laces. After watching him struggle for fifteen minutes or more, his guard tied him back in his chair and then laced the boots. Next he went to a small refrigerator in one corner of the torture chamber and brought over a bottle of water and a thick chocolate bar, and freed one of Ben's hands. Ben tried to connect with the man.

"Do you understand me?" he asked.

The guard stared at him blankly.

"I asked if you understood me."

There was no way Ben's bruised jaws could even make a dent in the cold chocolate. Just as well, he thought. His stomach, raw from retching, was in no shape to accept any food. Glumly, he sipped the water through cracked, bloodied lips. His body was throbbing, his vision blurring, then clearing, then blurring again. From time to time during the days when he was younger and more philosophical, he would ponder the unanswerable, wondering how old and where he would be when he died. It felt strange and more frightening than he could have imagined to have that moment actually arrive.

But why had he been dressed up?

Ten minutes passed. Then another ten. Ben, too dry even to sweat, felt himself slipping in and out of consciousness, and would have fallen over had he not been strapped to the back of the chair.

The opening and sharp closing of the door startled him awake. Even having endured pain that was beyond pain, even somewhat prepared for facing certain death, what he saw drew an instant band of fear around his chest. The man he knew only as Vincent, his torturer, was about to be come his executioner.

The apparition that was the man stood before him, feet apart, head erect, looking taller and stronger than a park statue. His face was expertly streaked with camouflage paint, which matched his shirt and pants almost perfectly. His long blond hair was tucked beneath a commando watch cap. But that outfit was not the source of Ben's fear. Across the killer's back was slung a quiver containing a dozen or so long arrows, and in his left hand, held just off the floor, was a complex-looking bow.

"Let me introduce you," Vincent said. "This is a Buck Fever Compound Bow with a seventy-pound draw and a PSE shoot-through arrow rest. These here are thirty-one-inch Epic carbon arrows. Straight and true all the way. We ain't got much time for tracking and hunting on these trips. And decent game is in pretty short supply here anyhow. So what's a hunter to do?"

"I…don't think I can even stand up," Ben said.

"In that case, this is going to be one goddamn short hunt. Now listen and listen closely. Rio is maybe eighty miles south and east of here. Belo Horizonte is almost due north, a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty miles, but in that direction there's some powerful steep hills — mountains, some might call 'em. In between, there's any number of little towns and villages where you might find a friend. Personally, I don't think you're gonna make it, but you never know. First, you gotta get away from me, and I don't think folks would accuse me of bragging if I said I was a pretty good shot with this thing."

His free hand flashed out, grabbed Ben by the hair, and pulled his head back as far as it would go.

"I need some fresh blood of yours to keep the scent," he said. "I promise you, Callahan, if you don't make this a challenge for me, if you don't put up enough of a fight, I'm going to wound you someplace that won't kill you, and have you dragged back in here for a serious go-round with the prod that will make this last session seem like a carnival."

He released his grip, but before Ben's head could flop forward, Vincent hammered him across the face, reopening the gash his gun barrel had made.

Ben ignored the blow, and the pain, and the blood streaming down, soaking into his shirt. To his way of thinking, he wasn't being given a chance to live, but rather a chance to die outdoors and with a modicum of dignity. He had won the battle against this man and against Whitestone. Alice Gustafson and Organ Guard were safe. Now, it didn't matter that he was about to lose the war. He had long ago lost his faith in the church — in any church, in fact — but now he sensed that if his childhood priests and catechism teachers were right, and there was a heaven, he at least had a shot at getting there. He only hoped he could put forth a decent effort and that the end wouldn't hurt too much.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

"Untie me," he heard his surprisingly forceful voice say.

Vincent nodded to his assistant, and it was done. Ben clenched his teeth as best he could, and pushed himself upright. A wave of dizziness and nausea threatened to topple him, but he forced himself to remain erect, and even managed to take another pull from the water bottle.

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

With the Hail Mary reverberating in his mind, Ben took one painful, awkward step toward the door. Then another. He wondered what it would feel like to have a high-powered arrow pierce his body. These weren't summer camp archery arrowheads Vincent would be firing at him. They were the hunters — the ones with three or four metal sides coming to a lethal point at the tip.

Another step — this one somewhat easier. He took a deep, steadying breath, and passed through the door into the mid-afternoon sun. Vincent strode out after him.

"Straight ahead," he ordered. "I'll tell you when to stop."

Ben forced himself upright. He had won. Now it was time simply to play out the string. Just two months ago, if someone had told him he would be dying for a cause he believed in, he would have leaned back in his scarred desk chair in his tawdry little office, and laughed until he cried. Where was Madame Sonja when he needed her? The whole business of being tortured would have been so much easier if he had only known in advance he was going to make it — if he had only known in advance that he was going to safeguard Alice's name and mission to the death. He wanted so much to see Vincent's face when he told him that the game was over, and that Whitestone had lost. But of course, that would have to remain his secret.