Austin Camacho - The Payback Assignment

Morgan had just stepped into the relative cool of the hallway when he heard a moan. It was not from Mrs. Seagrave. It was a deeper voice, and it came from behind him. Turning, his eyes were at first seared by the brightness of the flames. Heat washed over his face making it harder to breathe. Squinting, he sighted in on a figure on hands and knees, following a long shadow across the floor, but much too slowly.

Paul. Shit. Can’t just leave him, Morgan thought.

Before he could put his thoughts into words, Felicity brushed past him. While he looked on, his mouth agape, she took the arm of the man who had kidnapped her and helped him regain his feet. After pulling Paul’s left arm across her shoulders, Felicity shuffled toward the door. Morgan could see the pallor of blood loss and the extra creases of pain on Paul’s face, but there was no time for additional first aid now.

“I can make it,” Paul said in answer to Morgan’s unvoiced question. He tried a smile of thanks.

Felicity passed Morgan in the hall and banged the call button. A long, tense minute passed before the private elevator door opened. The quartet hurried aboard for the short ride down three flights. When the doors opened again, the air was clearer, allowing everyone a deep breath.

“Okay, gang, let’s go.” With that, Morgan spun his load and headed down the hall. “Elevators are suicide in a burning building, I’m afraid. We had no choice before, since Seagrave had the stairs closed off from here up. But from here down we’ve got to take the safer choice.” He pulled the steel door open and started downstairs.

“Wait!” Felicity shouted. “There’s a wire. Six steps down.” In the darkness Morgan managed to pick out the trip wire and carefully stepped over it. Felicity continued talking as they moved steadily down the stairs.

“It’s an old habit,” she said as they moved through the smoky gloom. “Whenever I go up stairs on a caper I leave a wire. If I have to exit quickly, anyone following me gets slowed down some.”

Morgan’s breathing got deeper after each flight of stairs, but the smoke also got thinner and the oven like warmth felt farther and farther away. He could feel Seagrave’s wife beginning to fidget, fighting the drug still coursing through her veins. Paul, on the other hand, was less able to support himself, despite heroic effort. It was increasingly obvious that his weight was almost too much for Felicity to handle. Morgan wanted to help her, but he knew time was escaping them. He didn’t know what businesses occupied most of the building, but Seagrave’s business floors were warehouses filled with shipping materials, enough cardboard and paper to fuel a blast furnace. Beyond the stairwell he could hear the roar of the fire climbing down the building. If it ever got ahead of them, the stairwell itself could become a swirling blast furnace if any of the lower doors had been left open.

Morgan’s thighs were burning as he proceeded downward, and his eyes burned with the sweat he didn’t have time to wipe away. On the nineteenth floor landing Mrs. Seagrave’s legs jerked in an awkward spasm. Thrown off balance, Morgan slumped against a wall. His eyes wandered up the stairs, focusing on the line of red spots Paul was leaving behind. Felicity’s face was ashen and streaked with gray tracks left by her perspiration. Her hair hung in a clump, tangled under Paul’s arm, and her eyes were vacant with concentration. Paul’s face was ominously blank.

Morgan would not have left Paul behind, out of respect. He was still surprised that Felicity, unasked, had tried to rescue him. She had not dropped him yet, but it was obvious that she could not continue for long. He feared they would have to abandon someone, unless providence intervened.

“I think I can walk now.” The woman’s voice behind him took Morgan completely by surprise. Marlene Seagrave squirmed off his shoulder and smiled a woozy smile, trying to square her own proud shoulders and regain some dignity in her silk nightgown.

“Thank God,” Felicity said, barely above a whisper. “This one’s just passed out.”

“Yeah, and I’m smelling more smoke,” Morgan added.

“It is getting warm in here, isn’t it?” Felicity said, nodding with her dramatic understatement. Morgan took three deep breaths and pulled off his light windbreaker, handing it to Marlene. “It is warm, but I thought you might want to cover up some.”

Marlene nodded her thanks and accepted the jacket. Her reaction to his shoulder holster and knife was barely perceivable. Morgan noticed it, and he saw that Felicity did too. Marlene pulled the jacket on without comment. It hung past her hips and covered her hands completely.

Paul replaced Marlene in a fireman’s carry across Morgan’s shoulders, and the group continued descending the long vertical tunnel at a somewhat better pace. Morgan led, with Felicity close behind and Marlene Seagrave following. With each step, Marlene’s mind seemed to become clearer. No one would mistake her for an athlete, but she was working hard to keep up, and to catch up in another sense.

“I have to ask you people something,” she said in a breathless tremor. “I’ve been able to piece together a little of what’s been happening here.”

“I can imagine your confusion, eh…”

“Marlene,” Mrs. Seagrave replied to Felicity’s unvoiced query. “Thanks for verifying that we haven’t met before. I don’t recognize either of you. I know you don’t work for my husband. He makes sure they all know who I am. On the other hand, you hardly behave like police or emergency personnel or anything like that. So the most confusing thing to me I guess is why I’m here. I mean, my husband’s staff all left me behind. Why didn’t you?”

“That would take a bit of explaining,” Felicity said, brushing some long red strands from her face. “It’s a little complex.”

“I think we have time,” Marlene replied, out of breath but still able to manage a small smile.

“Well, alright then. You see, I was in your room earlier and I drugged you. If we left you there, in a fire like that, well, that’d be murder, wouldn’t it?”

Marlene seemed to consider her words carefully, or maybe she was just having trouble catching her breath. “But you, well, this might seem a bit wrong to say under the circumstances, but you were there to hurt my husband, weren’t you? ”

Felicity rushed to say, “I was there to rob him.”

Morgan appreciated Felicity’s response. She must have liked Marlene Seagrave just for her straightforward attitude. She was trying not to hurt Marlene’s feelings, but the woman persisted.

“I’m sure that’s true,” Marlene said, “but there are surely easier targets for a robbery. Why Adrian?”

Felicity kept pushing forward, not looking back at Marlene. “Sorry to tell you this, but he cheated me in a business deal. I wanted back what he took. We, eh, had a bit of a conflict with your security guards. Things got a little out of hand is all.”

“The fire?”

“That was an accident,” Felicity said with a raised index finger. After that remark, Morgan could not resist breaking into a grin. If he turned he imagined that he would see Felicity blushing.

Ten steps later, Marlene said, “I know the man your friend is carrying. He’s one of my husband’s business associates. A security specialist I think he said. He’s probably one of the men you had your conflict with.”

“So what?” Morgan asked over his shoulder. “Should we have left him to die?”

“Would he have saved you?” Marlene returned.

“Of course,” Morgan said, but without much conviction. He wanted to end the conversation, because he found life easier when he did not examine his own reasons too closely. He got along just fine as long as he did what felt right at the time.