'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.
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.
