“Why weren’t you more surprised when I stuck that gun in you?”
“Next time I’ll make sure to faint.”
“You come here alone?”
“Go on outside and check.”
He seemed to think about that, then shifted my gun to his belt.
“I got a question,” I said.
“I bet.”
“Why?”
“That all you want to know?”
I nodded. Gilmore shrugged. It was my dime. And it wouldn’t play for very long.
“Money,” he said. “If you knew that, maybe you wouldn’t be in the chair.”
“The body bags?”
“A little cash on the side.”
“What about the Fours’ drug stash?”
“Now that’s gonna be a lot of cash on the side.”
“It was a mistake, Gilmore.”
“You’re gonna lecture me about mistakes?”
“Whoever paid you to release the pathogen isn’t gonna like all the extras. Gonna get around someday to thinking you’re a liability.”
“Insurance, Kelly. Gotta have it. And I do. But thanks for the concern.” He waited a beat, to see if I’d make things any more fun. Then he tightened the skin around his eyes and pulled back on the trigger.
The first round hit me in the shoulder. My head snapped to the left and back. I could see the desk behind Gilmore, tilting crazily in liquid swirls of light. I leaned to the right and managed to keep the chair upright. His eyes were back, flat and empty, sitting at the other end of the gun barrel. I zoomed in on the cut iron of the hammer pulling back a second time, then snapping forward. A boom in my ears. Compression in my chest. And a Chicago summer floated in. Grass cut fresh. I was kneeling in the on-deck circle, looking back to talk to my coach. Jimmy McDonald hit a single. I turned at the sound and caught his bat flush in the temple. I fell to the ground and looked up. There was nothing there. Nothing but blue sky, and my brother’s voice.
Except this wasn’t a bat. It was a bullet. And Philip wasn’t here. Just me. Falling backward. The desk toppling until it was standing on its head. Then a row of rafters, slabs of scarred wood, laid across the ceiling. After that it was over and down, heels first through a hole in the floor. The tunnel, black and smooth. The fall itself, fast. A long way up, I could still see the gun. Eyes like boreholes above it. Hammer falling. Always falling. There were voices in my ear. Images reflected in the stygian gloom. I tried to stop my fall, but couldn’t. Silence pressed against my skin. The physical weight of falling. And the wind. Without a shred of pity. Then the fall stopped. I lay in the darkness. Darkness became light. And then they were one. And that one was nothing.
CHAPTER 57
My eyes moved under their lids, then opened. I saw tiny honeycombs of white. Soft cells stretching around my face, enveloping. A voice scratched at my consciousness. I wiggled my hands, pinned to my sides. I was lying on what felt like a wooden floor, wrapped head to toe in plastic bubble wrap. The voice scratched again. It was Ellen, talking through a micro-receiver tucked into my ear.
“Can you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I whispered and hoped Gilmore wasn’t standing over me giggling.
“Good. Just give me a minute.”
The package Ellen had given me contained a “smart shirt”-one of CDA’s prototypes made with a weave of carbon nanofiber. Testing showed it could take a. 40-caliber round at fifteen feet. I moved my shoulder. Deflect, yes. Entirely bulletproof, no. All in all, however, no complaints.
“Michael, the shirt detected some loss of blood and released a little Adrenalin into your system. Your vitals look fine, but I’m going to give you another spike. Should wake you up. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I was shot twice. Might have gotten clipped in the shoulder. Or at least bruised.”
“Can you move?”
I wiggled my fingers again. “Give me a minute.”
Ellen fell silent. I felt for the small knife I’d stashed in a pocket along my thigh. Gilmore hadn’t bothered to check me for weapons. Why would he check a man he’d shot point-blank in the chest? It was a couple of minutes’ work to get the knife into the palm of my hand. Another minute to cut myself loose. I was in a small room, just off the main space on the second floor. Someone was typing in the next room. Gilmore. Probably figured he’d finish up some paperwork, wait until it got dark, and dump me somewhere. Fuck him. I crept to the door and took a look. He was fifteen feet away, back to me, working at his desk.
I edged out of the room and across the floor. I had the knife. There was a gun at Gilmore’s elbow. It was still raining, harder now, and the sound of it against the windows covered my approach. I got to within two feet before I saw his shoulders tense. He grabbed for the gun and turned. But it was too late. I cracked him across the side of the head with the brass butt of the knife. He fell sideways off the chair and hit the floor hard. I was on him quickly. He tried to turn his body, but I was behind and had the leverage. I slipped my good arm around his neck, fitting his Adam’s apple into the crook of my elbow. Then I squeezed.
He snapped his head back, hoping to break my nose. I kept the pressure on. He struggled to his feet. I stayed with him. We circled backward and to the right, locked together in a staggering sort of dance. His arm swept a stack of papers off his desk. His hand pawed at my face. I bit his finger. He went to a knee. I hung on. It had been fifteen seconds. His brain was begging for blood. Oxygen. He tried once more, rearing up, slamming me into a wall. Then he crumpled to the floor and was done.
I flex-cuffed one arm and leg to a chair. He sat forward, head lolled against his chest.
“Ellen?”
“I’m here.”
She had listened to the struggle and never said a word.
“I’ve got him tied up.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Who else knows I’m here?”
“No one. Just like I promised.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, Michael.”
“I’m gonna shut down this comm for a bit.”
“What are you gonna do?”
I looked down at Gilmore. He was starting to come around.
“He’s got a lot of paperwork here. Hang tight until I check back in.”
I took out the earpiece and shut down the transmitter. Then I pulled out my knife. Gilmore’s head was just starting to lift off his chest. I spread his free hand out flat and took a final look out the window. The rain was sluicing off the roof and running past the windows in tiny waterfalls. I drove my knife through the meat of his hand until the blade buried itself in the wooden desk.
The scream made me feel almost sorry for the one who had killed so many. But not quite. He thrashed around for a second, not realizing his predicament and only causing himself more pain. I kept my hand on the hilt and leaned close.
“Awake yet?”
I cracked a couple of teeth with a straight right. He spit out a knot of blood. His arm was spasming despite himself.
“Fuck you.”
I twisted the blade. He grunted. Then smiled.
“Need to do better, Kelly.”
