Blackjack Wayward (The Blackjack Series) (18 page)

“I know you can understand me,” I said, but she just shrugged. “If you know beer, you know what I’m saying. Besides, I thought you people all knew, like, twenty languages.”

“Vous êtes une stupide peu être de service à,” she scoffed, then added in broken English; “You have cigarette?”

I motioned to the ragged, sweaty robe, indicating the lack of pockets, shrugging.

“Je te tuerais pour une cigarette, Blackjack.”

My name. She knew it, and based on how nonchalantly she said it, she was unafraid of me.

“You know who I am,” I said. “You know my name?”

She tried to smile.

“Je vous baise à deux reprises, crétin stupide.”

Cretin meant the same thing in both languages, and it wasn’t hard to infer what “crétin stupide” meant. But I had no time to waste with this woman. She was in as much danger as I was, maybe more, but if she was going to start insulting me and turning away my help, then to hell with her.

I stood and moved to the door, sliding it open and daring a look down the hall.

“I’d love to stay and chat, angel,” I said, starting to move out of the stairwell, “but there’s a guy out there that wants to kill me and–”

I paused then, again wracked with guilt at the many dead in this place. They would blame me for it, unjustly tacking on to all the shit they had on me, real or imagined.

It was then, I think, that I realized that I could try to fight back. To help Razor and take a shot at stopping Zundergrub and his crew of psychos, before they hurt anyone else. My body was already better, and if they took me out in the process then perhaps that wasn’t such a bad way to go. Better than going back to the mind-prison; better than a lie.

“Ce qui est faux?” she asked, trying to come to her knees, but her frail form wasn’t up to it. I guess getting electrocuted and then punched in the face had its benefits. Compared to her, with my wobbly legs and perpetual disorientation, I felt like a million bucks.

“Just stay here,” I said, trying to take control of the situation. “There’s a guy out there, a guy who wants to kill me. He’s a bad man. Bad as they come.”

She chortled, wincing from the pain.

“I know you can understand me, ok?” I said. “Anyway, I’m going to try and stop him and the guys he’s with. When I’m done, I’ll come here and get you some help.”

“He kill you,” she said, breaking it up as if in three separate sentences, pointing at me with the last word.

“I have to try,” I said.

She shook her head.

“Why die?”

“I can stop him.”

The woman leaned her head back against the wall in frustration.

“Why die?” she repeated, frustrated she didn’t know more English. “Why die?”

“He’s a bad man,” I said, not sure how to respond. “If I can kill him before his people get to me, then maybe ... he tried kill everyone on the planet once.”

She nodded, saying only one word; “Hashima.”

“You know about that?”

“Pas étonnant que votre rêves étaient comme des contes de fées,” she mumbled, then said to me, “You are Boy Scout?”

I just shook my head.

“Get away. Live. Fuck this.”

“I can’t get away. I don’t even know where I am. Besides, I just told you there’s a guy here trying to kill me.”

“Mon Dieu, vous êtes comme un enfant sans défense,” she said to herself. “I get us,” she motioned to both of us, “away. To the safe ... merde comment voulez-vous dire....”

“You can get us out of here?”

“Oui! I get us out of here.”

“How?”

I felt a dark specter cast its pall over her, a wave of anger directed at me, at the hint of questioning her, that made me shiver.

“Je devrais vous laisser ici,” she said slowly, her voice dripping with venom. “Peut-être vous sera celui qui se lève le cul.”

“I said how,” I snarled, crossing the distance to her, and roughly picking her up off the floor by her shoulders.

She smiled, her head not completely stable, lolling back as I lifted her.

“This, I like,” she said, her hand touching my chest. “Do this, then go.” The woman reached down, grabbing at my genitals, but I squeezed her shoulders, just hard enough to make her reconsider.

“Je vais couper votre bite,” she snapped, trying to bite me.

“We don’t have time for this, woman!” I said. “If you can get us out of here, say so now. If not, then to hell with you.”

Her face softened, her lips almost forming a smile. She brought her hand up, slowly at first so I wouldn’t hurt her shoulders, then to my face, caressing my cheek. Her good eye danced over my features, her lip twitching with approval.

“You are–” she started, pausing as her thumb touched my lips. I jerked a little, feeling her touch on the parched, broken skin of my lips, expecting her to attack me by surprise, but she shook her head and finished, “–so handsome.”

She smiled as much as her injury would allow, the pain of the gesture making her chuckle.

“Un homme magnifique,” she said, and I sort of understood her for the first time.

“Take me to....” she started, struggling with the words. “Le bureau de l’étage ... uhmm ... office.”

“What office?”

She pointed up.

“Up?”

“Yes,” she said. “Office up, yes.”

I moved back, away from her but still holding on to her frail form. She shrugged, as if the moment had passed, the opportunity gone.

“Ok,” I said. “I’m guess going to have to carry you up there.”

She understood and opened her arms. I was gentle, using my left arm to lift her just above her knees and my right to cradle her softly. She had little control of her neck and shoulders, but with difficulty, she brought her head up to face me and touched my chest.

“Dale.”

I nodded.

She touched her chest, and said; “Claire,” then rested in my arms as I carried her up the stairs.

Chapter Eleven

I couldn’t make it to the next floor without my legs acting up and had to one-step it up the rest of the way.

“Le haut,” she said, not bothering to lift her exhausted head. “Up, up.”

Looking up the stairwell, I saw that it led up four more floors. This particular one was where most of the gunfire was coming from. Whether from friend or foe, I had no idea. It did sound like a gunfight, with return fire from both sides and a lot of screaming. I might not have known who was fighting whom, but I knew for certain I didn’t want to get caught in the middle of Zundergrub’s forces, who were trying to kill me, and the security personnel, who wanted to put me away.

I kept going up the stairs one step at a time, laboring over each, having to amble up with one leg, and lean against the wall with my shoulder, angling away from her legs so I could drag my other leg up to the next step. Each step a chore, I crested the next floor. I was starting to feel the hollowing pit of my stomach, aching for food, and then I understood. This was more activity than I had put my body through in months, and what they fed me through the nose tube was probably a pittance. I was starving and my body was feeling the accelerated effects of the physical exertion.

But I couldn’t rest. I couldn’t stop until I got the hell away from here.

I didn’t know what I was thinking earlier, when I intended to rush and face Zundergrub. Not only was I in no condition to fight the man, in fact, I doubt I would have even gotten to him through his horde of followers. The doctor had been busy since Hashima, building an army of crazies, all eager to drink the Kool-aid. I had seen a lot of young faces, people new to the game, recruited for raw ability rather than skill, their inexperience protected by the mob. From the sounds of the facility coming apart, he easily had a hundred guys under his banner, ranging from aging psychopaths, eager for another shot at glory like Razor and Dreadmaster, to young fools, unaware of their power and potential, willing to risk everything for whatever reward Zundergrub was offering.

And all of them were looking for me.

No, I couldn’t face Zundergrub like this. If I could barely beat a guy like Dreadmaster, I was better off running, fighting another day.

We reached the top floor, and I shook Claire from her slumber.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, lady,” I said, thinking aloud.

She blinked with her good eye and motioned me toward the metal door leading out of the stairwell. I tried the handle with my left hand, but the thing was locked tight.

“Can you walk?”

“Oui,” she whispered, still half-asleep. I gently let her down, then put my shoulder into the door, only hard enough to break the frame while making as little noise as possible.

This floor was completely different than the labs below. It was hard metal and pipes, industrial and functional, everything painted in non-descript taupe, with each stretch of hallway compartmentalized and watertight. The metalwork was solid and hard, with thick plates and support beams, and a metal grid floor to allow drainage of water. It could only mean one thing; we were underwater.

I had always envisioned the prison as something idyllic, straight out of an Arthur C. Clarke novel, floating high in the North Atlantic: a buttress against the cold elements, beautiful and gleaming. In fact, this place was more wrought iron and bolted metal than polished white marble, and by placing us deep underwater, maybe thousands of meters below the surface, they were creating a prison that was truly impossible to escape from.

“Oh, man,” I muttered, taking a few steps forward. “We’re not going to be able to get out of here!”

“Yes,” she said, losing her patience with me almost instantly. “Just go. Go, go, go!”

“We’re under water!” I said, exasperated. Why had I trusted this woman? For all I knew, she was one of Zundergrub’s flunkies who had decided to dress like one of the inmates for a bit of fun with Dreadmaster, her favorite sexual position being anal sex after having her nose broken. She was a crazy, twisted bitch, that much I knew, and following her advice was only cementing something in my mind that I had for a long time began to suspect.

I’m a terrible judge of character.

But no. It couldn’t be. Dread was a wicked, ugly-looking man, and this woman had a delicate beauty, despite the broken face, with a sublime figure and timeless grace.

“Vous êtes un tel imbécile!” she spat, moving past me and through the darkened halls, leaving me no choice but to follow.

I’d had enough of this woman berating me in French, enough of having to follow some mad, half-naked crazy to my probable death. I rushed her and grabbed her arm.

“Hey,” I snapped. “I’m not going to take much more of this crap. You understand me?”

She cocked her head, bewildered that I would put my hands on her.

“Let go of me,” she demanded.

“I’m not kidding.”

Claire laughed, turning her damaged face away from me. “You are incapable of hurting me,” she said, her English forced and broken but far better than anything she had tried before.

I pulled her closer to me, snarling; “I’m big, bad Blackjack, lady. You don’t know what I might be capable of.”

My threat was met with more laughter. She tried to pull away, but my grasp was tight.

“I know you better than you know yourself,” she scoffed, ripping her arm away. “You think you can get out of here? Then go, go and die to the crazy men. I don’t care.”

“You’re not giving me much to work with here, lady.”

“My name is Claire, Monsieur Blackjack. Do not call me ‘lady’. I don’t like it. You want me to call you ‘man’? ‘Hey, man,’” she mocked in her best American accent. “Com’ere, man! What’chu doing, man? Vous êtes un singe.”

“Vous êtes,” I said, mangling the French. “That means ‘you are’ doesn’t it?”

She nodded, enjoying my frustration.

“What the hell does ‘singe’ mean? I’m guessing it’s not good.”

Claire just shook her head.

“I just need to know how we’re going to get out here, you know? Like, what you have planned. It wouldn’t cost you anything to give me a goddamned clue.”

“Magic,” she smiled and walked away.

The lab’s labyrinthine passages in the floors below were nothing compared to the confusing web-work of hallways on the topmost floor. Alleys shot off at angles in every direction, sometimes doubling back upon themselves in the direction you had just come, even arching up and down, as though this level was actually three sublevels for added confusion.

Claire led the way, with slow little steps and a nonchalance that bordered on arrogance. Didn’t she know that were being followed? My every attempt to hurry her was met with daggers from her eyes and an expression of utter contempt. Then she would return to her slow stroll through the facility, her hands touching the piping or doorways we would pass, though I had no idea what for.

The sounds of the carnage below were muted; the deck plating was at least three inches of steel. In fact, this part of the facility was entirely different than below. Not just in appearance, but in construction and function, as if two different structures were stacked one atop the other. This was a rugged underwater rig, built to withstand the pressures of depth and compartmentalized against any loss of containment. Every door was as thick as the deck, electronically controlled so they could be closed remotely. The hallways were narrow and of low ceiling, forcing me to hunch to avoid hitting my head on the overhanging lights. There was only enough illumination for functionality, allowing the crew to find their way through the interminable passages.

This was in contrast to the bright lighting and wide passageways below, a spacious feel like a hospital, with large rooms, a high ceiling, and painted, clean walls, though it was a much different place at the moment.

Below us, Zundergrub and his crew were killing everyone in sight, and try as I might, I couldn’t ignore the screams that filtered to my ears through bulkheads and stairwells. Up here, Claire, the crazy chick who was going to get me killed, wandered through the halls aimlessly.

“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to conceal my total loss of patience.

“You’ll see,” she said, playfully.

I stopped.

“What?”

“I need to know now,” I said, but my display was ignored, as she turned and walked away. I was about to start raging when I heard hushed voices behind me. Turning around, I saw two figures moving in the distance, just blurred shadows to my dysfunctional eyes. They saw us and were rushing our way.

“Why are you afraid?” she laughed. “You are Blackjack!”

“Not so loud, dammit!”

She shook her head in disgust, continuing her Sunday afternoon stroll, slow enough for our pursuers to catch up.

“You’re going to give me a heart attack, woman,” I said, backpedaling as our enemies got closer. They were three men. Two were smallish and cautious; the third was larger than me and hunched over with two massive draping arms, each as wide around as my waist.

One dug into his waistband pulling out a walkie-talkie and brought it to his face, no doubt reporting our location.

“Great,” I said. “Now they know where we are.”

“So,” she said, still moving away from me. “When they come, we will kill them.”

“If only,” I said as we passed a bulkhead and door junction. I walked through the doorway and closed the heavy hatch behind me before ripping out the controls. The last I saw of them, Zundergrub’s men were rushing the door, trying to get to it before I slammed it shut. If there had been a window on the door, I would have blown them a little kiss.

There had to be plenty of ways around, but for now we had left them behind.

The metal door started to shudder at the impact of blows so strong that they shook the whole floor. I smiled bitterly, remembering the time I had to pound through a metal door. The big guy looked like he had some power, and that was assuming neither of the others had an ability that would allow them to bypass the door. The door dented once, and again, straining against the enclosing frame. He was strong enough to break through if he kept at it.

One thing was for sure: we didn’t have much time.

I rushed after Claire, still hobbling but able to move a lot faster now that Zundergrub had found us. Adrenaline was a hell of a thing. Everything felt crisper and I almost felt like myself. Behind me, the door buckled inward with a sickening crumple. What little patience I had was now gone. I grabbed her arm, turning her to me like a rag doll.

“Vous salir les mains sur moi,” she said.

“Enough! Are you with him?” I yelled, but it only confused her. “Are you with Zundergrub?”

She just smiled.

“You are a stupid, stupid man.”

I just stared hard at her, trying to decipher the woman, but there was no way to differentiate logic from whimsy. She was unafraid of me, and apparently unafraid of Zundergrub.

“Do you know what he’ll do to you? Because I do. I’ve seen the guy in action.” I said.

Claire shook her head, still unimpressed.

“Turn around,” she said, whirling her finger.

“What?”

“Behind you.”

A heavy vault door stood in our way, in effect barring our passage.

“Open it,” she said casually. “and we can get away.”

“You’re kidding me,” I said, because the hulking vault door looked like it would take a hundred guys to open.

I don’t know what it was made out of but it seemed made specifically to keep me out. I pounded on it with the fleshy bottom part of my fist and could tell it was dense and deep. The resounding thud was drowned out by the beating and slamming sounds of our pursuers knocking down the door behind us.

“You’re kidding me,” I repeated, feeling the vibrations of my blow reverberate through the bones, broken not so long ago while bringing down a wall that could similarly ‘not be broken.’

Claire sat atop a small compressor box and watched the relentless thrumming down the hall, oblivious to my difficulties.

I studied the edges of the massive door, which was maybe twenty feet in width and half as much tall, and found it flush, leaving no space for me to sneak my fingers under to get a good grip. The handles and hinge mechanisms were inside the door, unavailable to me. There was neither control panel nor radio receiver device to work with a hand-held remote. Not that we had the remote, or even a way to replicate such a thing.

I longed for my old watch, the Omega Seamaster I’d stolen and turned into a supercomputer. I missed the hell out of my old boots, covered in compartments full of valuable gadgets and goodies. For example: I’d carried a 150cc vial of strong acid, but to open this door I’d need gallons of the stuff, and the fumes from the acid would probably choke us to death in this small chamber anyway.

“There’s no other way in?” I asked, looking back but she shrugged. “What do we need inside there?”

“My things,” she said.

“Your things?”

“Yes.”

“What things?”

“What do you care?”

I lost it, punching the door and screaming, “Do you understand what’s going to happen when those guys get the doors down? Do you? If I can’t stop them, then you’re fucked. You see what I mean?”