I put one foot on his joined palms.
“I’m gonna give you as much of a lift as I can,” the man said. “There’s enough electricity in these wires to fry an elephant.”
“Oh, great,” I said, my heart pounding. Then another volley of shots flew past us. “Here, take this.” I held out the rifle to him.
“What am I gonna do with that, boy? Throw it over there.”
I did what he said.
“Ready?” he asked when both my hands were resting on the top of his head.
“When you are. And thanks.”
I felt my legs move down slightly, then I was arcing over the fence, my belly missing the vicious barbs by a whisker. I bent my knees and landed and rolled toward the rifle.
“Run!” the inmate yelled.
I did what I was told. The tree line must have been seventy yards away. My lungs were heaving and my legs burning as I made cover.
I stopped and looked back. The guards had caught up with the black man before he got back inside. One of them hit him in the face. Then the other took out his pistol and without hesitation shot him through the throat.
I gasped and saw red. I raised the rifle and loosed off several rounds. The guards both dropped, but I wasn’t sure if I’d hit them. The murdering pieces of shit. I almost ran back into the open to give myself a better shot. Then there was the roar of an engine and a gray pickup emerged with at least five men in the back, all of them carrying rifles. I had to go.
There was very little light under the dense branches of the pines. Although the forest floor was relatively clear of undergrowth, I couldn’t make out any paths. Voices rang out behind me, so I pressed on as fast as I could. At first my throat became clogged with phlegm, but as I got into a rhythm with my running, it loosened up. The muscles in my legs weren’t fully stretched yet, but I felt they could cope. I must have been a fit bastard in my previous life.
I didn’t stop to look round, not that the trees would have allowed much of a view, but I reckoned I was increasing the gap between me and my pursuers. That should have made me feel good, but it didn’t. The farther I went, the stronger became the feeling that I was leaving something important behind. No, more than that, something essential. I ran on autopilot as I racked my memory for what that could be. Nothing. I had no idea. I had very little memory. I could remember everything that had happened since I’d woken up in the comfortable bed, but things before that were locked securely away. All I was thinking about was the savagery I’d seen-the man tied to the post and slaughtered like an animal; the emaciated man summarily executed for helping me. What could have inspired such brutality?
Then I considered what I’d done. I’d knocked out the nurse, clubbed the doctor, smashed two men’s heads together, beaten the hell out of the naked man’s killer and laid into the two guards at the exit. And I’d shot at the black man’s killers, perhaps killing them. I wasn’t much better than the gray-uniformed scumbags. And now I was abandoning something vital back in that prison. What was it? And how had I come to be at the heavily guarded location? What had happened to me there?
All the time I was struggling to find answers to those questions, I was moving across ground that was gradually becoming steeper. The space between the tree trunks began to grow. Looking up, I saw that night was falling. That would make things much harder for the men who were after me. I’d run at several different angles, so I may already have lost them. But, as I came out of the forest and into tall grass, I realized I was the most lost of all. I didn’t even know which country I was in, never mind where the nearest town was. I stopped and listened for any encouraging sounds-no cars, no music, no people, hostile or not. I turned a full circle. There were no lights anywhere. I felt completely alone. For some reason, that didn’t frighten me, though I felt disoriented by the scale of the trees and the vast number of them all around. Either I had no imagination or I’d done this kind of thing before.
After checking behind me, I moved off again. I’d only been going for a few minutes when the moon, three- quarters full, appeared ahead of me. A jagged line of rock was caught in the white light, slopes without tree cover leading up to it. I was in the middle of a wide meadow. To my right were more trees and I headed for them. When I made the cover, a wave of relief washed over me. The pines weren’t as tall as the previous ones, but they were closer together. I had to push my way past the lower branches but kept going. My throat was parched and my stomach was rumbling, but I didn’t feel tired. I would get farther away from my pursuers and then settle down to eat the bread I’d been given by the doomed man.
Then I heard a sound that worried me. Despite the state of my memory, I had no difficulty in identifying the howl of a hunting dog. It wasn’t as far off as I’d have liked. Had that been why I’d lost the men behind me? Had they stopped to wait for the hound to join them?
It looked like it was going to be a long, hard night.
Seven
After twenty years in Washington D.C.’s Metropolitan Police, twelve on the homicide team, Detective Gerard Pinker had gotten used to corpses. That didn’t mean he found attending autopsies easy. His partner Clement Simmons never complained. In fact, Pinker reckoned Clem even breathed through his nostrils during the procedures-too dedicated for his own good.
“I suppose you’ll be looking forward to this,” Pinker said in the elevator on the way down to the morgue. He straightened his tie and shot his cuffs. “What with being into voodoo and all that shit.”
The tall, heavily built black man beside him shook his head slowly. “I’m not into voodoo.” He ran an eye over his partner’s diminutive figure. “At least not in the way you’re into rich men’s suits, Versace.”
Pinker grinned and slotted a piece of gum between his thin lips. “Right, Clem. So I was just imagining the goat’s head and the little dolls you got in your den.”
“Not the doll with your name on it,” Simmons said as the doors opened. “Shit, man, you know my grandmother was from Haiti. I’m interested in my family’s culture, that’s all.”
Pinker stepped into the morgue and was immediately swamped by the smell of chemicals cut with flesh and blood. “Well, I’m glad my family hasn’t got that kind of culture.”
The big man followed him down the corridor. “Your family hasn’t got any culture, man. You’re nothing but West Virginia white trash.”
Pinker met the grin with a raised middle finger. They went through the swing doors and found the medical examiner looking at a clipboard. She was above medium height and he liked the way she was built-slim, but stacked in the right places.
“Gentlemen,” she said, raising her eyes briefly.
The detectives’ demeanor was suddenly much more formal.
“Dr. Gilbert,” Simmons said, shooting Pinker a warning glance. His partner had come on like too much of a pussy hound the last time they’d encountered the striking red-haired woman. Not that she couldn’t look after herself, as she’d proved by dropping a scalpel less than an inch from Versace’s new oxblood wing tips.
“Morning, Doctor,” Pinker said. “I’m betting you never had one done through the ears before.”
The medical examiner finished what she was doing and looked at him, her blue eyes icier than a mountain lake. “You lose, Detective. I had a drug dealer three months ago, shot with a. 45 bullet through the external acoustic meatus, destroying the tympanic membrane, as well as the malleus, incus and stapes.” She smiled briefly. “The brain was pretty messed up, too.” She inclined her head toward the autopsy room. “Shall we?” She stepped away, her head held high.
“What, dance?” Pinker said under his breath. “Yeah, baby, yeah.”
As the detectives approached the table, a technician moved back and they got a full view of the body. The man’s naked form-overweight and heavily tattooed-was striking, as were the skewers protruding from his ears. His waist-length hair was hanging over the end of the table like a black flag. His long beard had been parted to allow access to the chest.
“No problem identifying this one, I imagine,” Dr. Gilbert said, taking in the tattoos. “There can’t be many
