Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

He forced his chin up and trudged forward, one painful, unstable step at a time. Then he paused, took one last swig from the water bottle, and tossed it into the brush. They were on the gravel road, out of view of the hospital.

It was time.

"Let me get this straight," Ben asked, his voice raspy and not as strong as it had been, "if I kill you, I can just go free?"

"That's it," Vincent said, perhaps a little irritated. "Get away and you're free. Kill me and you're free. Get shot, you lose."

"Has anyone in this little game of yours ever gotten away?"

"What do you think?"

"Then I'll just have to be the first."

"You have a minute, asshole. Sixty seconds and thwack! My eyes will be closed, but my ears won't. Go any way you want. I owe you big time for Cincinnati, so I'm only going to wound you with the first shot — and maybe the second one, too, now that I think about it."

"Say when," Ben said.

"When."

When!

Just like that, Ben's life was on the clock. Several precious seconds had passed before he moved. The brush to his right seemed slightly thinner than to the left, so he plunged in that way, not trying for stealth, but rather to stay on his feet and put at least a little distance between him and the man who was about to kill him.

"Forty-five seconds!"

The voice seemed inches away. Ben slapped aside branches, and pulled himself ahead using the trunks of trees. The initial pitch was mainly downhill, but the terrain was rocky and uneven. If there was any path or track that could at least partially mask his progress, he didn't see it. Several large boulders announced the beginning of an uphill push. He should have gone the other way, he thought. In his condition, uphill was an enemy. Oh, hell, what difference did it make? This wasn't a matter of life and death, it was a matter only of death — only of when. He was in his last seconds on earth. His life, which had once held so much promise, was about to end painfully, and suddenly thoughts of what he had missed, of what had never happened, were shooting through his mind.

"Thirty seconds!"

Vincent's voice seemed marginally farther away.

The hill, much steeper now, would have been no problem for him if he hadn't been so battered. As it was, the dizziness and nausea were intensifying. Maybe he should hide — find a place of dense growth and try to burrow in and wait his killer out until dark. Ridiculous! For one thing, he hadn't put that much ground between them, for another, branches were breaking with every step, and finally, he realized, where he was, the undergrowth had fallen away. If he continued standing, Vincent would have a straight shot from many yards away.

At that moment, Ben stumbled and pitched forward, slamming heavily into a massive granite rock face that was four or five feet taller than he was. The rising ground around the monolith made Ben think he could at least make it up to the top. Then what? The best he could think of was throwing himself down onto the killer and trying for one of the arrows. The best of no options.

"Fifteen seconds!"

Ben wondered how far he had gone. A hundred yards? Probably much less.

On his hands and knees, he forced himself uphill and around the huge boulder. He was light-headed and gasping for air, but inch by inch, he moved ahead.

"All right, asshole!" Vincent called out. "Time to die."

Ben flattened himself near the top of the rock. He was probably at such an angle from the ground that he couldn't be seen, but he still felt exposed. He held his breath and listened. There was only the machine thrum of thousands of insects. He glanced about. There were some tall trees — maybe mahogany or eucalyptus — and thick undergrowth, extending six or seven feet off the ground, but his chance to run was gone. His only hope was to stay out of sight and pray that Vincent passed directly beneath him, or that somehow, he had started off in the opposite direction.

Again, Ben held his breath. This time, he heard something — a rustling of the brush not far to his left. Vincent was close — very close. Ben turned his head, but did not lift it. Instead, he pressed his cheek against the granite and peered in the direction of the noise. The underbrush was definitely moving, and the moving force was headed in his direction. If Vincent circled the rock to the uphill side, that was it. Hunt over. Ben knew he should have kept running. His only chance now, and not much of one at that, was to wait until it seemed the killer was right beneath him, then hurl himself down.

The noise of cracking twigs and shifting brush was even closer now. Just to the left of where Ben lay. Staying flat, he shifted his weight as best he could. At the movement from above, Vincent would be swinging his bow upward, trying to get off a quick shot. Ben would avoid the arrowhead, fall on him, and quickly go for the quiver.

Quiet…listen…look…Don't breathe…Don't breathe…Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…and…NOW!

Ben pushed to his knees, prepared to leap, but Vincent wasn't beneath him. Instead, an emaciated feral dog, tan with white legs and a long, narrow snout, was sniffing its way through the bushes. Ben felt a surge of hope. Maybe Vincent had gone the other way after all. Maybe there was still time to run. At that moment, he was shot from behind. The arrow slammed through the muscle at the base of his neck, glancing off his collarbone before exiting with the arrowhead and four inches of shaft exposed just below his jaw.

Stunned by the impact and the shocking pain, Ben pitched to his right, fell heavily onto the surface of the huge rock, and then toppled off. He landed on his side, air exploding from his lungs. Through the corner of his eye he could see the point of the arrow, and the part of the shaft that was protruding from his body.

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

But in that minute, death did not come, nor in the next. Ben lay motionless, beyond feeling pain, tasting the coarse dirt of the rain forest floor, the surrounding greens and browns a blur. Finally, there was movement from behind him to the edge of his field of vision.

"That was for Cincinnati," Vincent said. "This one is for all the smart-asses in the world who think they're putting something over on the rest of us."

In a final moment of absolute clarity, Ben's vision sharpened, and he saw the camouflage-painted apparition, fifteen yards away, grinning as he raised his bow and drew back. Suddenly, Vincent jerked his head back and swatted at his cheek as if he had been bitten by a gigantic insect.

"What the — ?"

They were the killer's last words. From somewhere in the forest, a long, thin blade flashed from the trees, and pierced his neck through and through. Blood from a severed artery was spewing from the wound before he even began to fall. Widened eyes, a muffled cry, and a graceless pirouette, and the behemoth slumped to the ground, dead before he even hit.

Ben, not being able to completely comprehend what had happened, felt blackness closing in. At the last moment, before total darkness, he felt a light touch on his shoulder, and heard a voice — a soft, reassuring woman's voice.

"It's going to be all right," she said.

Dr. Anson, please come quickly. It's Rennie. I think this is the end for him. He's still awake, but his blood pressure is gone."

Anson followed the young nurse to room 10 — the quasi-isolation room at the far end of the hospital. Rennie Ono, a woodcarver in his early forties, was getting ready to die. He had battled his AIDS for a decade, but after years of quality living, he had lost out to a combination of infection and sarcoma. There was nothing else that could be done — at least nothing medically.