The Jigsaw Man (31 page)

lighter, and a wooden cross, but no tools that would

help me play amateur gas fitter. So I used my boots in¬

stead, standing up and kicking the pipe where the reg¬

ulator controlled the amount of gas flowing into the

ignition chambers. Five kicks later my foot and leg

were killing m e , and hardly any damage had been done.

I'd bent the pipe a bit and smashed off the top half of

the regulator, but the gas flow was still contained. Or

was it? You can't smell natural gas, but they add some

thing in with it that you can smell to help detect leaks.

Whatever it was, I could smell it now, easily, and when

I bent back down and placed my hand on the fitting, I

was pleased to find a decent gush of gas pressure push¬

ing my hand away.

All right! Now we're getting somewhere.

I gave the regulator one more hard kick, and planned

more, but it hurt too much.
Way
too much! Maybe I'd

busted something—a toe or two—in my first series of

kicks? Maybe I was j u s t falling apart and this body

couldn't stand up to the physical pounding I'd been

forcing it to endure? Either way, I was done beating on

the regulator.

I rechecked the flow of gas exiting, the furnace pipe

and was pleased with my efforts. The gas wasn't

free-flowing out of the supply line like I'd envisioned,

but it was pumping out a hell of a lot more than I'd

thought possible without the use of proper tools. I

wanted to get away from the pungent, chemically tainted

smell of the spreading gas vapor, so I hobbled away

down the center aisle and eventually sat down on the

floor against something white and made of metal, bask¬

ing for a moment in my small but potentially major ac¬

complishment.

All
I have to do now is wait for—

Then I shone my flashlight behind me to see what I

was leaning up against, and my simple plan instantly

went up in smoke, m o r p h i n g into something consider¬

ably grander in a matter of a few heartbeats.

Oh my!

I stood up to get a better look, shining my light

around and marveling at how large this thing was up

close. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of this in the

first place, but it goes to show how brilliant of a planner

I was in the fine art of sabotage.

The oxygen tank.

Two of them, actually. Side by side. The huge,

floor-to-ceiling cylindrical white metal oxygen tanks

I'd been backed up against by Drake and his goons on

the day they let me out of the goreAfilled incinerator.

The same tanks that Drake had prevented his

over-zealous cohort from shooting me against be¬

cause—

BOOM!
I t h o u g h t with a smile.

Big BOOM!

N o w
this
had potential. The spreading natural gas

could mix and be superenhanced by the oxygen and I

should be able to make a monumental mess down here.

Would it be enough? It would make a huge bang and

destroy the basement, probably collapse some of the

building too, but was that enough? I was starting to

think clearer than before-—not j u s t looking at this

through revenge-colored glasses—and if I was going to

do this right, I wanted to leave n o t h i n g but a big flam¬

ing hole in the ground. It wasn't enough to j u s t put

N a t h a n Marshall out of business for a while. It wasn't

even enough to get lucky and kill him. I needed to

destroy everything here—
everything
—not leaving be¬

hind anything or anyone that might be able to put to¬

gether the pieces of this horrific puzzle and start up

shop again. That was going to be a bit trickier.

But not impossible.

I ran the flashlight beam up and across the ceiling,

tracing the dozens of pipes that spider-webbed out from

the top of the twin oxygen tanks. They spread out all

over the basement—much farther than my light could

shine—but I knew they all turned u p , eventually, into the

ceiling, snaking their way through the floors and walls to

every operating room, every recovery room, every pa¬

tient room, and every test laboratory in the castle.

Oh my!
I thought for the second time in less than a

minute, a brief vision of a huge mushroom cloud of fire

and smoke playing before my mind's eye.

The vision might be a tad exaggerated, but it gave me

a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of my stomach and pro¬

pelled me into action. I had a lot of work to do before

Drake and his boys came home from their hike in the

woods. I wanted to be ready for them.

First things first, I needed to get these tanks pump¬

ing pure oxygen into the basement to mix with the

natural gas that was already spreading. Luckily, I

wouldn't have to resort to busting my toes again to ac¬

complish this. Both tanks had hookups where a hose

could be connected to fill them from tanker trucks out¬

side. The hose was interchangeable and right now it

was connected to the tank on my right. It ran along the

floor toward the back wall, but I couldn't see where it

exited the building. Didn't matter; I had no intention of

messing with it. Maybe if I was lucky, it would be con¬

nected to a supply truck and I could blow that up too.

Regardless, if my plan worked as hoped, the gas inside

this tank would soon be spreading around the upper

floors.

For now, I was concerned with the other tank. I

headed for the supply hookup on the left-side tank, and

it was only a matter of t u r n i n g a shut-off directional

valve the right way and
WHOOSH,
the oxygen was

blowing steadily out the hole where the hose wasn't

connected. Couldn't have been easier, but I corralled

my joy, knowing I still had things to do that wouldn't

be accomplished quite so quickly and definitely not as

easily.

As fast as I could go, I headed for the stairs.

C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - S I X

W h e n I opened the basement door, the light of the

first-floor hallway nearly blinded me. The overhead

fluorescents seemed brighter than normal, but I'm sure

that wasn't true. It was j u s t the realization that my plan,

which required a certain amount of stealth, had a few

more holes in it than I'd wishfully thought. Stealth

wasn't going to have much to do with it. W h a t I needed

more than anything was a big handful of pure dumb-ass

luck.

W i t h another deep breath, I stepped out into the

carpeted hallway and shut the basement door. I don't

think I've ever felt so exposed in my life, but there was

n o t h i n g to be done about it so I pushed the bad thoughts

from my mind and went to work.

There was n o t h i n g on the first floor that interested

m e , and I was sure I'd run into Dr. Marshall or one of

his secretaries if I h u n g around down here too long, so

I made for the staircase at the end of the hallway, paused

briefly to listen for voices inside, then quietly slipped

inside. I felt much better in here, out of the area most

trafficked, and took a second to calm myself before

heading up to the second floor.

The hallway was deserted when I peaked my nose

though the barely opened door but I had no idea if

there were going to be people in the operating rooms

and labs. I'm sure there would be, in fact, but I couldn't

do anything about them. If they saw me, so what? Most

of the doctors, scientists, and orderlies around here were

used to seeing my face and probably wouldn't bat an

eye. That was what I was hoping for, anyway.

Moving down the hall, I soon came to the first oper¬

ating r o o m — t h e one where Dr. Marshall had taken my

arms—and was pleased to see it was empty. The lights

were off but the window blinds were half open, giving

me more than enough light to see what I was doing. As

quickly as I could I went around and turned on every

gas valve I could find. I was ext?a pleased to see that not

only were there several oxygen valves, but there was a

row of stand-up portable tanks on the far wall labeled

E T H E R C Y C L O P R O P A N E
and
E T H Y L E N E .
I didn't
l o i O W

what they were—maybe the gases used as anesthetics?—

but there was a flammable symbol on the side of each

one, which was good enough for me. I pulled off the

plastic tubes connected to them and cranked their

valves wide open. Instead of standing around admiring

my handiwork, I moved on.

The next half hour went by in a blur. There were two

more operating rooms on the second floor and seven

fully equipped laboratories. I moved as fast as I could,

progressively limping worse as my foot and leg started

h u r t i n g badly. I sucked up the pain, though, and kept

moving. Room to room, lab to lab, each new door I

walked through threatened to be my last. No one

stopped me. No one screamed. No one put a bullet

through my head.

Things were looking up.

As luck would have it, I managed to hit all three op¬

erating theaters and six of the labs. There were scien¬

tists working in the other lab, and although I wasn't

worried about them getting a look at me,
I
didn't think

they'd approve of me walking in and cranking all the

gas valves on in front of them. Best to count my bless¬

ings I'd hit nearly all of the rooms, and j u s t move along.

The third floor beckoned.

In the stairwell heading upstairs I met a tall redheaded

orderly named Jack O'Hare who'd sometimes helped

Junie during my rehab. He'd been decent to me the few

times I'd spoken to him and he j u s t nodded to me, un¬

concerned, and kept on descending the stairs. I held my

breath until I made it into the third-floor hall, then

exhaled loudly, surprised I'd actually made it this far

without being caught.
I
got over it, fast, thoughts of

Junie bringing the anger out in me again, and I was

more determined than ever to do this j o b right. These

fuckers were gonna pay!

The third floor was the quietest of all. M o v i n g down

the hall, room to room, it was like tiptoeing through a

funeral home. The carpet was so plush I couldn't even

hear my footsteps as
I
walked along. It was starting to

creep me out. At every door, I expected to run into

Drake, or one of his guards, and no matter how many

empty rooms I entered, the feeling wouldn't go away.

My nerves were pretty much shot, I think. Getting

close, anyway.

Get a hold of yourself, man. Get this done, and then you

canfallapart. Not now, Mike. Not now.

Sounded good to m e , but it didn't stop my rented

heart from h a m m e r i n g inside my rented chest or my

rented fingers from shaking each time I reached for

another doorknob.

Still, I managed, equal parts fear and rage keeping

me moving, driving me past the steadily growing pain

in my leg and the ever present doubt in my mind. I hit

every patient room I could get into. Some were locked—

maybe they were the ones with people in them—but

most were easy pickings. Twenty-five minutes later, gas

was flowing all over the third floor and my plan was

nearly complete.

N o t quite, though.

N o , there was something else I needed to do. Some¬

thing I was dreading but important enough that I knew

I couldn't chicken out and shy away from. Fd made a

promise to someone here once—someone who'd suf¬

fered just as much as I had, maybe more—and if it was

the last t h i n g I ever did, I vowed I'd see that promise

through. W i t h a heavy heart, and a pit the size of a

bowling ball trying to rise into my throat, I headed back

for the stairwell. I needed to go up to the fourth floor

for a few minutes.

I needed to visit the Bleeders' room.

C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - S E V E N

I was in the hall outside the Bleeders' room, with no¬

where to hide, when a sour-faced nurse
I
didn't recog¬

nize exited the room. She was carrying a tray heaped

with plastic blood bags that had surely j u s t been har¬

vested from the group of cruelly vivisected men strapped

to the beds inside.

. "What are
you
doing up here?" the nurse said in a

tone that made me want to beat the life out of her with

my bare hands. W h o the hell was she to treat these

men like this, robbing them not j u s t of their life juices,

but of their dignity—hell, their
humanity
—as well? I

kept my cool, though. No sense blowing things now,

not when
I
was so close to success.

"Mr. Drake told me to deliver a message to one of

the guys in there. Said he'd be up soon to talk to him

personally. I'm supposed to wait here."

Pretty crappy cover story, I know. W h a t possible

message would the chief of security want delivered