Scorpion's Advance (24 page)

'Back down?' whispered
Mirit.

Anderson nodded. He was cursing himself for not having foreseen that movement between the upper and the lower halves of the building would be denied to most people if what went on in the containment suite was to be kept secret. As they approached the bottom of the stairs, he was feverishly trying to think of an alternative course of action when the initiative was taken from them. A man was waiting there, pointing a gun at them. Anderson's shock was amplified by the fact that it was the man who had pushed
Shula Ron off the walls of Jerusalem. The man acknowledged the fact that he had recognized Anderson with the merest trace of a smile before he indicated the direction they should move in with the muzzle of the gun.

'Sorry,' said Anderson to
Mirit.

The man said something that Anderson did not understand.

'He says, put your hands on your head,' said Mirit.

'Oh, shit,' said Anderson quietly as they were herded along the corridor. He had just noticed the closed-circuit television camera on the end wall. It had been covering the entire length of the hall.

'Halt,' said Mirit, translating the Arab's command. The man circled round from behind, keeping the gun on them all the time and feeling for the handle of a door without diverting his eyes. The door opened to reveal a flight of stairs. Again the man motioned with the pistol, and Anderson and Mirit descended into a sub-basement which, unlike the rest of the building, did not seem to be air conditioned. The man followed them down and opened up a further door, that of a small, stuffy storeroom. They were directed inside.

As they went through the doorway
Mirit signalled with her eyes and a slight movement of her head that Anderson should move to the left. He complied and was aware of the Arab saying something sharply to him. Still not understanding what was going on, Anderson turned to see that Mirit had moved to the right, thus dividing the man's attention momentarily. The Arab was indicating that Anderson move back beside Mirit, assuming that the man would be the greater threat, but, while his attention was with Anderson, Mirit swung the edge of her hand at the man's throat. The blow missed his windpipe but connected with the side of his neck, sending him reeling against the edge of the door. The gun flew from his grasp and clattered over the floor to slide past Anderson and lodge between two crates of plastic containers.

Anderson was aware of
Mirit swinging her foot at the man's groin but failing to connect as he himself made a dive for the gun. He heard Mirit cry out in pain behind him. He discovered that he could not get his hand between the crates to grasp the gun and tugged frantically at one of the crates with his right hand to increase the space. He managed to insert his left and pull out the weapon.

As he did so, the Arab reached him and brought the heel of his shoe hammering down on Anderson's left hand, making him scream out in pain. He was aware of the metacarpal bones being splayed out and the flesh parting in a splash of red as nausea hit him like a white wall. The man bent down to retrieve the gun and Anderson made a last desperate attempt to hit him with his good hand. The punch connected, but only weakly, and the Arab stood back to
aim another kick at Anderson who tried to avoid the blow but took it high up on the head. Suddenly, pain and nausea became black nothingness.

It was so dark that Anderson considered for a moment that he had gone blind. But even a consideration of that magnitude took second place to the agonizing pain he felt in his left hand. He tried to move it and immediately the pain soared through the agony barrier. It was so intense that he didn't cry out. His reflexes had bypassed that response and gone directly to throat paralysis and cold sweat. He now realized that his hands were tied together, the slightest movement of his right hand inducing the fires of hell in his left. His throat muscles relaxed enough to permit a single, shivering curse.

'Neil, are you awake?' said Mirit's voice in the darkness.

Anderson had to concentrate hard before he could manage a reply.

'Are you injured?' asked Mirit.

'My hand is damaged,' said Anderson, turning understatement into an art form.

'Badly?'

'Could be. How about you?'

'I was knocked out but I'm all right. My hands are tied behind me but I'm working at it.'

'Any luck?'

'I think the rope is loosening a little.'

'Good,' said Anderson quietly, realizing that he should have said something more encouraging or enthusiastic but pain was weakening his spirit.

'What do you think they will do to us?' asked Mirit.

'They will kill us,' said Anderson weakly as nausea threatened him again. 'They have to. We know too much, and that man was the one I saw kill
Shula Ron.'

Mirit
was quiet for a moment then she said with conviction, ‘Then we have to get out of here.'

Anderson felt himse
lf teeter on the brink of acquiescence. It scared him. It reminded him how he had almost given in high up on the walls of Jerusalem and let himself fall . . . calm acceptance of the seemingly inevitable. He began to fight back. 'How are you getting on with those ropes?' he asked Mirit.

'I could do with some hand cream,' she replied. This would be a lot easier.'

'How about oil?' asked Anderson, with a flash of inspiration.

'What do you mean?'

The containers in the crates. They were full of centrifuge oil!'

'Lubricating oil?' said
Mirit in disbelief.

'Yes,' said Anderson.

'Do you think we can . . . 'started Mirit, but she stopped herself. 'Ssh, there's someone coming. Pretend you are still unconscious.'

Anderson closed his eyes and feigned unconsciousness as the key turned in the lock, but felt sure that whoever was coming in must hear his heartbeat. Through his closed eyelids he was aware that the room light had been switched on. Footsteps came nearer to him and stopped. Oh God, he prayed, don't let them touch my hand! A foot was kicked into his side. He didn't move. The footsteps moved across the room to where Anderson knew
Mirit must be. He took the opportunity to open one eye slightly and orientate himself. He saw the crates of centrifuge oil and memorized their location. Behind him, Anderson heard their visitor say something in Arabic and thought for a moment that he had found Mirit out; but no, the man grunted, switched out the light and locked up the room again behind him.

'What did he say?' whispered Anderson.

'Sleep of the dead,' said Mirit.

Anderson asked her if she had managed to open her eyes at all. She said that she had and confirmed that she knew where she was lying in relation to the door.

'The crates are in the corner to the right of the door,' said Anderson. Tm sorry I can't be much help.'

Mirit
rolled across the floor and followed the line of the wall past the door until she contacted the crates. She manoeuvred herself up into a sitting position with her back to one of them and reached through the bars with her bound hands to make an attempt at forcing one of the bottles up and over the edge. She succeeded at the third attempt. Anderson heard the bottle drop and Mirit's sigh of satisfaction. 'Well done,' he said. 'Can you get the cap off?'

Mirit
did not reply; she was concentrating on using what little flexibility she had in her fingers to best advantage. The seconds seemed to race by, heightening Anderson's appreciation of the passage of time to a hitherto unbelievable pitch before Mirit said, 'It's done. I've got the oil on my wrists.'

Anderson could only continue to wait impotently in the blackness, listening to the sound of
Mirit trying to free herself. He knew she had won when he heard her throw her ropes across the room and get to her feet. 'I'm free,' she whispered. 'Can we risk the light?'

'Yes,' said Anderson, 'we'll have to.'

Mirit sucked in her breath when she saw Anderson's hand, still tied behind him. She smoothed the hair on his brow and said, ‘I’ll be careful.' She picked at his bonds with great care until the first knot was undone, then she gently undid the others. Anderson brought his hand round slowly and examined the damage.

'Well?' she said softly.

Anderson dabbed the blood away gingerly till he could see the exposed bones and connecting tissue. ‘I’ll have to set them,' he said, 'or it might be ruined for good.'

'But the pain?' said
Mirit in horror.

'No other way,' said Anderson. 'If I pass out, bring me round.'

He stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth until he was satisfied that he couldn't cry out, and then bit down hard on the remainder. He started to move the displaced bones with a quick, deliberate movement that made stars explode inside his head and sent showers of shrapnel into his nerve ends. He rested for a moment, mutely looking at Mirit and unashamedly aware of the tears that were running down his cheeks. Mirit looked on helplessly, feeling the pain herself, as Anderson made three more setting manoeuvres before letting his head roll forward on to his chest. She thought that he had passed out but it was just the sudden wave of exhaustion that follows severe exposure to pain. Anderson recovered and took the handkerchief from his mouth. 'It's over,' he said. 'Tear me some strips, will you?'

Anderson finished binding up his hand and let
Mirit tie the final knot. It felt much more comfortable with everything in the right place. 'Now to get out of here,' he said, although his eyes searched for sleep.

'We'll surprise that man when he comes back,' said
Mirit. She looked around the room for something to use as a weapon and selected a piece of steel conduit piping, part of a bundle of steel and copper tubing standing in one of the corners.

'This should do,' she said, slapping it into the palm of her hand. She knelt down in front of the door and moved back till she was satisfied with the range and the freedom of movement she had. S
he stood up and nodded in satisfaction.

'Can I help?' said Anderson, not sure what she was planning.

'Rest,' said Mirit, 'I can manage.' Using a piece of rag, she reached up and removed the light bulb. 'Now, we wait.'

Anderson heard footsteps approach. They stopped outside the door and the key went into the lock. The door swung back to reveal the figure of
Shula Ron's killer, silhouetted against the hall light. His hand came in and felt for the light switch which did not respond to the click. He said something in Arabic, but at that moment the pipe hit him. Mirit had ensured that the heavy pipe had been swung at maximum arc and its one metre length meant that the tip was travelling at ninety miles per hour when it met teeth.

The man dropped to the floor like a felled bullock and lay still. Ande
rson helped one-handed to pull him into the room. Mirit replaced the light bulb and searched through the man's pockets for keys and weapons. She found keys but no weapon; he had been confident that, tied up, they had posed no threat to him. She took the keys and switched out the light before opening the door and looking out into the passage to find it empty.

There were three more doors in the sub-basement. They discovered that two of them led to further storerooms, one to a laundry and one to a large cellar where the ventilation machinery for the building was housed.

'We're still trapped,' said Anderson. 'As soon as we go upstairs the TV camera will pick us up.'

They huddled together at the foot of the stairs. 'If it comes to it we might have to take on the next man who comes, try to get his weapon and fight our way out,' said
Mirit.

Anderson could tell from the look in her eyes that she had as little optimism for that course of action as he had. 'I can hear something!' he said.

They held their breath as the sound got louder, then Anderson recognized the sound of trolley wheels. He relaxed a little. Whoever was coming would not try to bring a trolley downstairs. He stretched out prone on the steps and crawled up enough to see round the corner up to main corridor level.

Two attendants, dressed in surgical green, wheeled a trolley past the head of the stairs. The patient lying on it looked directly at Anderson, giving him a bad moment, but there was no reaction. Anderson recognized the thickened features of one of the lepers from the hospice and guessed that he was under some kind of pre
-medication. He sank back down and told Mirit what he had seen.

'What's "pre
-medication"?' she asked.

'It's a kind of sedation they give to patients before they go to surgery.'

'You mean they are operating on these people?'

'Seems like it. But it can't be anything major. We know that they're only here for a couple of hours.'

The sound of the trolley had faded into the distance when Mirit said, 'We must be running out of time. They'll be coming to look for that man.'

'If they send two men we'll have no chance. I vote we make a run for it.'

Mirit stood up and took a deep breath. 'I'm ready,' she said.

'Wait!' said Anderson suddenly. The laundry! We could get a couple of the uniforms I saw the attendants wearing. We'd have a much better chance walking along the corridor in those.'