Jeff Abbott - Fear

‘Robert? You got him?’

Miles thumbed the button and spoke in a whispery rush that might camouflage his voice. ‘No, he broke free from me. Headed to the elevator.’ He found the elevator, its doors open, pressed four – the top floor. Nothing. Four must be a secured floor. He waved the electronic passkey over a panel above the buttons and a green light lit. He tried again, pressing four, and this time the button glowed in answer. Then he stepped out of the elevator. The doors slid shut and the elevator started its climb.

‘Robert?’ the other guard’s voice repeated through the earpiece.

‘I think he’s headed to four on the elevator.’ The diversion might leave the fourth floor stairwell clear for him.

He headed for an EXIT sign, found the stairwell. Stairs were good, elevators were bad. The well was dimly lit. He headed up the stairs, expecting to see Groote on the landing or a guard who hadn’t bought his story… but there was no one. Radio silence from the guards.

Sweat slid down his cheek, coursed down his back. He forced himself to take each step.

Andy stood at each turn of the stairs, smirking.

Miles’s breath tightened in his chest. He reached the top floor.

Tried the door. Locked. He slid a key home, worked the lock. The door opened.

‘Hello, Nathan,’ Sorenson said.

Nathan opened his eyes. Tried to focus. ‘Who…’

‘My name is Sorenson. I’m a colleague of Doctor Vance. We met, oh, so very briefly, at Doctor Vance’s house.’

Nathan said nothing.

‘You hit me. It’s okay. I don’t think you realized I was there to help you. I’d like to talk to you for a minute.’

Sorenson took a step into the room. Groote followed him, a step behind.

‘Are you better, Nathan, than you were when you first came to Sangriaville?’

Nathan nodded, glancing at Groote.

‘That’s wonderful to know,’ Sorenson said, and in one brutal move he grabbed Groote’s arm, wrenched it up while slamming Groote into the steel door. Groote yelled and Sorenson deftly twisted his arm. Groote screamed. Sorenson pounded his elbow twice into Groote’s face, breaking the nose, hammering the back of his head into the steel door.

Groote collapsed to the floor. Sorenson kicked him once in the ribs, then in the jaw. Groote went still. Sorenson leaned down, seized Groote’s gun, and raised it at Nathan. ‘What have you told them?’

‘I don’t know what you mean… I don’t know anything!’

‘Ten seconds to rethink,’ Sorenson said. ‘What names did you give them?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, please don’t!’ Nathan yelled.

The soft buzz nearly made Miles jump out of his skin. Then he realized the stairwell door was set to give off a ping when opened. He closed the door quickly, aware he was without cover. But no one stood in the darkened hallway. No guards at the elevator, awaiting him. The lift had already arrived and the doors closed again and he saw on the digital indicator the elevator had returned to the first floor. Probably set to do so automatically. Maybe the guards on the floor had seen the empty elevator and ridden down to help the battered Robert.

He moved from the door, close against the wall, crouching low. He inched down the hallway, glancing through the wire-reinforced glass in the doors. Beds, with men asleep in them, mostly younger guys but a scattering of men in their fifties and sixties. None was Nathan Ruiz. Miles tested the doors; all locked in for the night. Or perhaps to keep the patients out of the line of fire when the guards stepped out and mowed him down. Two rooms held women, also asleep. An office with a computer and a set of cameras, empty, the screens showing more deserted rooms.

He heard a soft, choked cry from behind a metal door. It read VIRTUAL REALITY TREATMENT on the plate. He pushed the door. Locked. He tried Hurley’s passkey and the door clicked open.

He started to push and a technician was at the door, reaching for the knob, the other hand pulling a headset off his ears, eyes widening in surprise as he saw Miles. Miles hit him a solid punch in the jaw, then another; the guy folded. Miles eased him to the floor, his hand stinging, glancing over his shoulder, sure someone had heard. He shut the door.

He stepped into a darkened control room, with a heavy pane of tinted glass. Beyond the glass a man floated, suspended in midair on white cables, jerking slightly, his eyes covered by a heavy, awkward visor, his ears hidden under sleek silver headphones.

On the screen a computer game played out – with sharp angles, with television-false colors, with a muted soundtrack of soldiers moving through narrow alleys and broad, dusty streets. He peered at the picture: men moving at night into an abandoned building, fake stars in a vault of sky above them, lights dimmed. Then bursts of light, the world gone in flame and dust, soldiers running and fighting, the blasts of rocket-propelled grenades painting the sky.

The man jerked on his tethers, a frown setting on his face, a cry erupting from his throat. The man wasn’t Nathan: too short, too blocky.

War, Miles thought, but not a game. What the hell was this place?

He stepped backward and the cord closed over his neck.

The pressure was sudden and strong. Miles tried to work his fingers under the cable to give himself breath and couldn’t. The technician twisted the cable tighter, using his weight to force Miles to stumble.

Black dots shimmered in the air before him; Miles drove his foot hard on the technician’s instep and heard a howl of pain. He tried to lurch free of the cable’s grip, kicked at the desk, hit a keyboard and a mouse as he struggled, trying to wrench the choking cord from the technician’s hands. His injured shoulder throbbed as he fought for leverage.

The blank monitors above him blinked to life. Paused computer-generated tragedies began to play, similar to the war scene playing on the main monitor. A crashing car cartwheeling across an interstate, slamming into a big rig. A plane flying into the World Trade Center. A school bus erupting into flame.

Miles spun and jerked hard to one side, pulled the technician off balance. The technician lost his grip; Miles felt sweaty hands abandon the cord and grab at his neck. Miles kicked back hard, slammed the technician into the wall of screens. Miles threw back his head in a vicious ram, connecting with the technician’s face. Glass shattered and the tech cried out in pain. The gripping hands around his throat eased and he jerked free. He dropped to his knees, grabbed the police baton he’d dropped when he’d tried to free himself from the cord. He swung the baton up and buried it into the tech’s stomach. The technician collapsed and Miles carefully dealt him an extra blow on the back of the head. He steadied his breath, stepped away from the monitors and their looping horrors, bile climbing into his throat, a chill kissing his skin.

He tucked the walkie-talkie’s earpiece back into place and heard the guards talking, searching the first floor, finding the unconscious Robert in a hallway. They’d be back here in a minute. He had to find Nathan Ruiz and get out, or they’d have him locked in here forever, hooked up to that machine, reliving his private hells. Horrible.

Miles stepped back into the hall, closed the door, then heard the brief, brutal sounds of a fight. The clang of a body striking metal. Then a scream: ‘Please don’t!’

He ran, the door was partly open and in the thin shaft of light he saw a man sprawled on the floor, another man standing, his back to Miles.

Miles opened the door.

Sorenson. With a gun. He started to pivot to fire and Miles tackled him, piledriving them both into the wall. Miles grabbed Sorenson’s arm, slammed it hard once, twice, three times against the wall, trying to break Sorenson’s grip on the gun.