Edge of the Heat 6 (21 page)

This man who had bought her a Barbie doll when she lay in the hospital recovering from appendicitis at age 4, after her mother had said
No, no Barbie dolls -they promote a negative body image.
Uncle Kevin had bought her one anyway, knowing it was the only thing she had wanted in the world — had wanted for over a year. And then he had stood up to her mother and got her to change her mind.
Convinced
her to change her mind. This man who had patiently spent two weeks
before
swimming lessons started at age 7 helping her with her forward crawl so she didn’t have to be stuck in the same group
again
that summer. Dani’s mind flash-forwarded through all the nice things he’d ever done for her. Every kind word, every gift, every wink when her mom and dad got on her case about something. He’d been the fun uncle. The guy you called if you needed to get away from your parents for a while. The guy who understood even when her father didn’t.
Especially
when her father didn’t.

And now he was going to kill her. Kill her and JT. JT stood before her, his face hard, his hand frozen in place in the act of reaching for his gun. He seemed to be staring Uncle Kevin down. Trying to read him, or out think him. The thought that Uncle Kevin would kill her hurt her heart. The thought that Uncle Kevin would kill JT, maybe in front of her, seared her consciousness. Sweet, thoughtful JT, who had done nothing but try to look after his friend. A red hot anger flashed through her body.
How
dare
he
? There was no reason for this. Nothing he could ever say or hope to say would excuse this behavior. She didn’t care if there was somebody behind him holding a gun to
his
head making him hold a gun to her. He was a man. And a God damned Marine. God damned. That was exactly how she thought of him right now, and if God didn’t damn him, she would.

A coldness dropped over Dani’s brain and a film of red covered her vision. The video playing her own thoughts in her mind flicked to slow motion, giving her time to examine her options. She stood tall and dropped the arm that had been weakly scrabbling to pull the gun away from her side. Let him hurt her. It would all be over soon, one way or another. Whether it was her or her uncle, someone was leaving this deplorable, sand-blown excuse for a town in a body bag. Her free hand clenched and unclenched at her side. She had a gun still, in the small of her back in a holster. She wouldn’t reach for it now, she had no good angle. But if he didn’t find it, he would be done for as soon as she had a clear shot.

She watched JT, his jaw clenched in a hard line, sweat standing out on his brow. She opened her mouth to tell him to shoot Uncle Kevin, then closed it again. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t risk her life like that. And it was no use trying to convince him to do it. He was a man of courage. Of principle. The kind of man she’d been holding out for the last 10 years without even knowing it. Her mind served up a clear image to her that had nothing to do with her probable imminent death. Sara looking at her and saying
are you related to him?
And Dani shaking her head
No
. And she’d never fixed that mistake.
That lie.
Never opened her mouth and said
He’s my uncle
. And now it was too late. Suddenly, that seemed inconceivable to Dani. That she or JT would lose their lives, their most precious gifts, without JT knowing the truth. Without her
telling
the truth. She opened her mouth again with the words on the tip of her tongue, but again she stopped. If she told him now, JT’s response (bewilderment? confusion? anger?) might give Uncle Kevin the upper hand.
Yeah like he doesn’t already have the upper hand,
she thought.

“Did you fucking hear me,
Devil Dog?”
Clarkson snarled. “Get your fucking hands up or she fucking dies and it will be your fucking fault.”

JT’s hands rose slowly, painfully, murder in his eyes. “Turn around and march toward that stairwell,” Clarkson told him, “If you do anything funny, even one move I don’t like, her brains will paint your back.”

Dani winced inwardly at the imagery. She wondered briefly if Uncle Kevin was on drugs. She never would have believed him capable of saying something like that about her. And of meaning it.

They started forward in a tight group, her Uncle’s hand still tangled in her hair and his gun still sticking in her side. In front of her, JT looked side to side. “Looking for help Devil Dog? You should know better than that. There’s no help here.” To Dani, her uncle sounded jangly, unwell. Like he’d drank too much coffee or taken some bad drugs.

Dani could only see the back of JT. His big hands clenched into fists in the air and she thought he might be imagining her uncle’s neck between them.

JT lead them to the stairwell. “Go on, climb up it. Just remember who is in charge here. And go slow.” On the third floor, JT stopped, head down. “Open the door and walk through. Stop in front of the first door on the left. Put your nose on it.”

Uncle Kevin pushed Dani through the doorway. JT stood waiting in front of the door, his posture tense. “Put your fucking nose on it Gunnery Sergeant, just like in fucking boot. You hear me?”

JT stepped forward and leaned into the doorway, his back shaking. Dani’s cold countenance remained, but underneath it she wondered at this treatment.
What was Uncle Kevin doing? Trying to humiliate JT?
5 minutes ago she wouldn't have thought it possible, but hate carved a wider river through her heart at this treatment.

The hand in her hair loosened, then disappeared for a moment. Something fluttered in front of her. “Pick it up Daniela.” When he spoke to her his voice sounded sad and weary. “Keep your fucking nose on that door Sergeant!” The mean snarl came back for JT.
That’s how he talks to his Marines when they did something wrong - or to keep them in line,
she realized.

The something that had fluttered to her feet was a key card. She picked it up, trying not to bend very much. She knew the gun at the small of her back was probably visible when she did. It was a big gun.

“Now move to your left Sergeant. And keep your hands in the air. If you drop them an inch you both die right here. Having to shoot you will put a small crimp in my plans, but not enough that I won’t do it.

Dani stepped forward to the door, knowing he wanted her to open it. She inserted the key card and watched the green light cheerily pop up. She pushed the door slightly open and waited for instructions.

“Walk inside to the far wall Daniela. Keep your hands in front of you. Don’t think about going for that cannon you have strapped to your back.”

Fuck
. Dani walked to the far wall, which was actually a covered window, of the tiny hotel room, thinking about it. She pictured the holster in her mind: which way it lay, how the strap lifted, how long it would take her to get the gun out of it.
Too long
.

Before she reached the window she heard two thuds behind her. The first sounded like a piece of meat getting hit with a hammer. It confused her. But the second was unmistakable. It was the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Who hit the floor?
She whirled, her eyes flashing. JT lay just inside the doorway, his arms underneath him and his face smashed into the carpet. Dani could already see a nasty bump raising under his short hair. The skin had split where Uncle Kevin’s gun had hit him, and bright blood oozed merrily from the split.

“What did you hit him for?” she cried, dismayed at the loss of control in her voice.

Clarkson knelt, his eyes never leaving Dani, feeling along JT’s body for the gun he wore in a holster. He pulled the gun out and released the magazine. It dropped to the carpet with an unimportant clink. “I had no choice Daniela, don’t be stupid. Look at him. He’s half my age and stronger than me. If I hadn’t knocked him out he would be on me already, wrestling my gun away.”

Dani blinked at this sentence, trying to understand how her Uncle could talk to her like she was in on it somehow. Like he was doing something sane and right. She studied his face. She hadn’t seen him in almost a year and she suddenly realized how horrible he looked. Like he had aged 15 years in the last 9 months. He’d lost weight. His skin seemed baggy and limp, like an ill-fitting suit. His eyes were sunken hollows that reminded her of a skeleton. His short-cropped hair had thinned, making him look even older if she focused on it.

“Uncle Kevin what happened to you? Why are you doing this?”

Clarkson stood, JT’s gun in his left hand, his own gun in his right and trained on Dani. “Turn around and lift your shirt,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

Dani considered not doing it. But why? For what? So she could die quicker?
That might be preferable, actually.
But in the end she did it. The will to live, to survive another day never succumbs easily. As she turned, her eyes crawled across the room, looking for something, some advantage, some clue, something that could help her understand and get out of this horrible situation. What she saw caused her breath to clog her throat. One bed was messed, Uncle Kevin had apparently slept here and not made the bed yet. On the other bed was a camouflage rucksack, its contents spilled across the coverlet. A large, slightly-curved knife, the largest she had ever seen that couldn’t be called a machete, called her eye immediately. But next to it was the item that really scared her. A slim, innocent-looking tube, that really wasn’t innocent at all. The single hole at one end and the screws meant for the threaded barrel of a gun on the other end told her what it was. A sound suppressor.
All the better to shoot you with and not have anyone hear, my dear,
she thought, feeling insane.

Uncle Kevin crossed the room slowly, his steps sounding strange and dragging. She looked over her shoulder and saw he was walking sideways so he could still see JT.
Oh, he is careful and crafty
, she thought, her hope and faith that she would get out of this alive crumbling.

He yanked the gun from the holster along her back and she heard her magazine drop to the ground. She turned back around in time to see him pull something from his pocket and lay it on the desk. He walked sideways again, till he was behind JT. “Pick up the black strap on the desk.” He nodded as she did it. “Now come over here and put that strap on him. Pull his arms out from underneath him and strap his wrists together behind him.”

Dani picked up the strap. It was black canvas, 2 inches wide, with loops at each end that could be cinched down. Just fancy cloth handcuffs. She took it to JT and did what Uncle Kevin told her. JT’s arms felt dead and heavy.
Dead weight
, rang in her mind. She watched his chest and was relieved to see he was breathing. She tried to leave as much room as possible around his wrists.

“Go back to the window. Slowly. Don’t turn around.”

She walked to the window, hearing Uncle Kevin move behind her. She chanced a look over her shoulder and saw him tightening the wrist loops that she had left loose. She stood facing the window, her ears trying desperately to decipher every movement behind her.
Is this it? Is this where my life ends?

Uncle Kevin approached her. “Hold your left hand behind you.” His voice still sounded sad, tired, heavy, and old. Like he was the one about to die, not her.

Dani’s left hand didn’t want to move. She couldn’t stand the thought of being handcuffed again. Her brain gave the command to put her arm behind her, but her body rebelled. The arm stole across her body in the front, its hand grasping her other hand and squeezing, as if for comfort. She heard a low refusal coming from her throat.

“Goddammit Daniela, don’t cross me
little girl
. You fucking do what I tell you or you’ll be fucking sorry.” He had put some steel into his voice, but it wasn’t the steel he used when talking to JT. It was how he had talked to her when she was 6 and she had found a can of paint in the garage and had spent a happy half an hour painting his motorcycle.

Dani heard and believed the threat in his voice and knew she was going to pay for her refusal, but she still couldn’t do it. Suddenly she wished she could take back putting it on JT. If she was going to refuse, why hadn’t she refused that? Her body tensed, full of guilt and fear, and she looked around wildly for a way out. She clawed the drapes aside and revealed a dirty window that covered the entire wall, but with no way to open it.
Jump? Try to force her way through the glass and possibly be cut to shreds or even shot on the way out? That would be better than being handcuffed again.
Thoughts flashed through Dani’s mind in a split second, leaving no time for contemplation. She knew Uncle Kevin was directly behind her, which left no room for a running start. She knew she was going to do it though. Or do something. She wasn’t going to just let him handcuff her. She was going to force him to shoot her. And even then, she was going down fighting.

Adrenaline spilled into her bloodstream, wiring her muscles for action. Her hands moved on their own, scrabbling towards the table on her right. In an instant she grabbed up the heavy rotary phone, a relic in America, but apparently just perfect in this tiny Egyptian town, and heaved it at the window. A wide spiral of cracks split the clean lines of the glass. Her next move was to jump at it, or perhaps hammer it again, but she was stopped short, again by her uncle gripping her hair tightly and pulling her by it. She felt no pain, but her body pitched backwards, led by her head. Dani tried to keep herself from falling and almost brained herself in the face with the bulky phone. She shrieked in pent-up rage and fear and thrust the phone over her head at her uncle instead. She caught him in the shoulder, hard by the sound of the grunt that whooshed out of him.