The Man of Bronze (4 page)

I landed on hard wooden flooring one story below—not an enjoyable jolt, but I’ve walked away from worse.

The light from the room above me showed that I’d dropped into the empty sanctuary of the old church. As I’d suspected, St. Anthony the Great had been blessed with more space than Dr. Jacek needed. The worship area was built in the traditional shape of a cross, but the clinic only occupied the cross’s vertical part—what architects call the nave. The cross’s horizontal piece—the transept—and its top—the apse—were empty and unused . . . like vacant wings of the building if Dr. Jacek ever chose to expand. At present, however, the doctor’s clinic was just a walled-off box set in the cross’s leg.

Reuben appeared backlit in the hole I’d smashed through the upper story wall. “Get down here!” I said in a harsh whisper. “Can you make it?”

He nodded and crouched, getting ready to jump. I could see him hesitate, probably imagining how his broken rib would lurch painfully under the impact of landing. “Hurry!” I told him. “I’ll catch you.”

“No. Stay back.” It might have been male pride speaking or fear that getting caught would hurt his rib more than landing unassisted. Either way, I accepted Reuben’s decision. In the few seconds he needed to summon his courage, I took the opportunity to check my surroundings.

The church had been thoroughly emptied before Dr. Jacek took over. Every pew was gone; the altar had been taken away too, and the pulpit, the lectern, the choir benches. The stained-glass windows had been replaced with sheets of plywood, and I knew the doors were boarded up from the outside. (I’d surveyed the building for escape routes before entering. Doesn’t everyone do that?)

Given time I could smash loose a board from a door or window, but it would be a loud, lengthy process—sure to attract unwanted attention. Our best way out was back through the clinic: piercing another flimsy wall, then racing through the ground floor rooms while the main force of mercenaries looked for Reuben and me upstairs. These chaps weren’t the brightest sparks on the bonfire; they’d waste quite some time Uzi-dusting empty rooms before they realized Reuben and I had moved on. Meanwhile, I could quietly dispatch whatever sentries were guarding the exit, then leave posthaste.

Easy. Nothing to it.

Reuben landed heavily beside me. He gasped in pain, but straightened up quickly. He stayed upright for three whole seconds before sagging and clutching his side.

“How are you doing?” I whispered.

He straightened up again, trying to pretend he was fine. “Can I take off these blasted bandages?” His voice came out muffled; his head was still sheathed in gauze.

“Feel free,” I said. “Catch your breath while I clear the way.” I glanced at the hole in the wall above us. “Rest somewhere you’ll be out of sight. Make sure that nice shiny attaché case doesn’t glint in the dark.”

3

WARSAW: THE CLINIC’S LOWER FLOOR

I took a quick tour of the clinic’s outer shell: the plasterboard walls that separated the dark church from the well-lit medical rooms. Every few steps, slits of light shone at ankle level—places where electrical outlets had been set into the cheap walls. Wires emerged from the rear of each outlet box. The wires were duct taped to the back of the plasterboard, then ran around to a central junction box where the main electrical feed entered through a wall of the church. If I were a professional electrician, I’d be horrified by the slapdash wiring: exactly the third-rate construction you’d expect in an illegal clinic built in defiance of safety codes. Not being an electrician, I was ready to dance for joy. One good yank on the incoming feed would cut power to the whole clinic. And since I already knew the men hadn’t come equipped with electric torches . . .

Nothing promises more good clean fun than shutting off the lights in a building full of high-strung men with Uzis.

First, though, I had to secure a way forward. I listened at the wall nearest the main electrical box: no sounds on the other side. Quietly, I pressed the Kaybar knife’s tip to the plasterboard and drilled a small hole at eye level. Peeking through, I saw a room cluttered with test tubes, microscopes, centrifuges, and other such equipment—obviously, the clinic’s medical lab. The phobic medical technician was nowhere in sight; since she seldom left her lab voluntarily, I assumed she’d been dragged out by force. The assault teams had indeed taken the clinic’s staff as prisoners.

I’d have to do something about that when I got the chance. So much to do, so little time. The story of my life.

I gave Reuben the choice of yanking the electrical feed wire or cutting through the wall with the Kaybar. He chose the wire. He winced as he raised his arms to grab the thick insulated cord, but when I whispered “Go!” he pulled without hesitation. The wire jerked out of the fuse box with a sharp bright
crack
; then the lights went dark, and I began whittling the knife through the wall.

The blackness wasn’t 100 percent, but it came close. A few photons feebly crept around the plywood that blocked the church’s windows—just enough that I wasn’t entirely blind but too little to show anything but the vaguest outlines.

It didn’t matter. Cutting the wall went well, though it was hard work. I was constantly tempted just to bash through by brute force, but that would make noise and I didn’t want to give away our location. As far as the bad guys knew, Reuben and I were still hunkered down in that room overhead . . . and with the lights out, the men up there would take a long time discovering otherwise.

I could hear them muttering to one another, debating their next move. Some had been injured by bouncing oxygen tanks, so their numbers were moderately diminished. They also knew I’d taken possession of their comrades’ Uzis. Correction: they knew
someone
had taken possession of the Uzis. The mercenaries had no idea who their enemy was. With some of their group hors de combat, and the opposition well armed but unknown, the men would likely adopt a wait-and-see attitude rather than charging willy-nilly into the dark.

Meanwhile I continued slicing through the wall. In half a minute I’d cut a hole big enough for Reuben and me to crawl through. I sheathed my knife and started forward. Since we had no lights, I worried we’d make a racket knocking over glassware in the lab, but just as I’d begun to move, a faint illumination sprang to life outside the room’s open door.

I raised an Uzi, thinking we were about to be discovered—maybe one of the gunmen had a light after all. But no one appeared. Instead, people gabbled a short distance away, saying in Polish, “Thank God!” and “That’s better!” Then a brassy woman’s voice said, “See, Stanislaw, that emergency light wasn’t a waste of money after all.”

It was Jacek’s senior nurse—possibly also his wife or his mistress . . . I’d never figured out their precise relationship. Her words suggested that the light we were seeing came from a battery-powered lamp, the sort that turns on when normal power goes out. A conventional hospital might have dozens of emergency lights throughout the building . . . but Stanislaw Jacek, ever the tightwad, had installed only one.

That single light would surely be in the operating room. Anyplace else, a blackout was merely inconvenient. In the OR, light could literally mean the difference between life and death.

“Stay here,” I whispered to Reuben. I followed the dim spill of light out of the med lab and up a short corridor to the OR. One peek showed what I’d expected: the staff was here, most of them huddled against the far wall. In the middle of the room, Jacek and two nurses, in green scrubs and wearing operating masks, clustered around the main table where they were working on a patient.

I couldn’t see the patient because the operating team was in the way. I couldn’t see any mercenaries either. It was possible these people had simply been herded here and ordered to stay put. Perhaps a gunman had watched them for a while; but when trouble erupted upstairs, the man had left to help his compatriots.

A promising situation,
I thought. If I cleared a path between the OR and the exit, I could get the staff to safety. The patient on the table presented a problem—no way to tell how soon he or she could be moved—but the more people who left the building, the fewer would be in the line of fire if the mercenaries started shooting.

Quickly and quietly, I went back for Reuben. The best place to put him was with the other captives. He’d be less noticeable among them, especially if he could find medical scrubs and a surgical mask to use as a disguise. Yes, we’d have trouble hiding the attaché case on his wrist; but we could cover it somehow so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious if a mercenary glanced into the room. Whatever we did, taking Reuben to the OR was better than leaving him in the lab where he’d stick out like a sore thumb.

Or so I thought. I’m not always right. When Reuben and I appeared in the operating room doorway, I held my finger to my lips. “Shhh.” The people stayed obediently silent . . . but Dr. Jacek, wearing a rueful expression, stepped back from the operating table to reveal the patient lying there.

It was one of the bad guys. He was getting surgery for a bullet that had shattered his ankle. The man was fully awake and still held his Uzi.

Oops.

I still had two Uzis of my own . . . and within a nanosecond, they were both pointed at the ruffian. To have his ankle mended, the man had removed all Kevlar below his waist; so that’s where I aimed my guns. There are times one can’t afford to be genteel.

Perhaps my choice of target was what discouraged the man from firing at me. I too preferred not to shoot—the noise would attract attention. So the hooligan and I faced each other in a standoff: gazes locked, guns at the ready, waiting for signs of weakness.

“If you move or shout,” I said, “you won’t enjoy the consequences.”

“Neither will you,” he replied. His English had a Scandinavian accent. “I’ve already been shot once tonight,” he said. “I’m not eager for more.”

“Shot by the doorman?”

“The scumbag got lucky.”

“I doubt he lived long enough to celebrate his luck.”

The gunman smiled. “If you want to avoid something similar, put down your guns.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“You’re outnumbered,” he said.

“You’re outclassed,” I replied. “You’re also unobservant. While we’ve been talking, Dr. Jacek has positioned a scalpel directly above your jugular vein.”

The gunman’s head snapped toward Jacek, and his pistol began to pivot in the same direction. In fact, the good doctor was
not
about to cut the ruffian’s throat. For all his quirks, Stanislaw Jacek really did live by the Hippocratic oath—he would never harm a human being, not even a murderous mercenary who’d helped kill the clinic’s doorman. But the villain on the table didn’t know that . . . and by the time he realized Jacek posed no threat, I was hurtling across the room. The gunman tried to bring his Uzi back to bear on me, but I cleared it away with a crescent kick that knocked the gun from his hands. I tried to follow up with an ax kick—up, then straight down—with the intention of slamming my heel hard onto the shooter’s stomach. The man saw it coming and threw himself back off the operating table. My boot made a heel-shaped dent as it struck the table’s metal surface but otherwise had no effect.

If I’d had enough clearance, I would have vaulted over the table and landed feetfirst on the man, now sprawled across the OR floor . . . but Jacek and his nurses were in the way. If I took the time to run around the table, the man would have ample opportunity to yell for help; so I dived straight forward, arms out, legs extended, much like the position for leaping headlong into a somersault. Instead of jumping all the way over the table, I let myself land half on, half off: my hips and legs on the tabletop, my upper body hanging over the far edge. I had just enough arm reach to get my hands around the gunman’s throat, choking off any cry he might make to his comrades.

It was hardly a ladylike position—my backside up on the table, the rest of me dangling head downward while trying to strangle someone on the floor—but none of the half dozen people in the room showed any inclination to lend a hand. Through gritted teeth I said, “Would someone please stamp on this fellow’s face? Or inject him with anesthetic. At this point, I’m not picky.”

Under normal conditions, my opponent would have wrenched my hands off his throat within seconds—I had no leverage to hold him down. But he must have been weakened from getting shot, not to mention his jarring drop off the operating table and whatever pain medication Jacek gave him before surgery. All the man’s flailing couldn’t break my hold. When Reuben started forward to get in on the action, the gunman gave up fighting me and shoved a hand into his pocket. “He’s going for a weapon!” I yelled; but no one was fast enough to intercede.

The man’s hand emerged from his pocket, holding a spherical silver grenade like the one I’d found on the thug upstairs. “This is not good,” I muttered. Still squeezing the man’s throat with my right hand, I swatted at the grenade with my left . . . but the mercenary avoided me and pressed the grenade’s buttons. With no other options left, I inhaled fast and deep in case the room filled with toxic gas.

But the grenade wasn’t filled with poison vapor. Instead, its mirror surface liquefied like mercury, pouring over the man’s hands and running up his arms: a thick silver gush that spread over flesh and clothes, coating his fingers, his wrists, his sleeves. A moment before it touched my hand—the one I still held on the man’s windpipe—I felt glacial cold from the air in front of the advancing fluid. I tried not to flinch as the silver washed against my skin, bitterly sharp, like instant frostbite. It oozed its way under my grip, forming a frigid barrier between my hand and the man’s throat. In a heartbeat, my fingers went numb with cold. I jerked my hand free; the tissue had already turned a bloodless white, and I shook my wrist hard to get circulation flowing again.

Meanwhile the silver spread faster, enveloping the man’s head and running down his body—changing him into a featureless mirrored humanoid, like some computer-generated figure intended to show off software graphics. I saw my own face reflected in its surface; then Reuben appeared beside me in the reflection.

“What the . . . ?” Reuben said, looking at the spreading silver.

“I quite agree,” I told him.

Staying atop the operating table, I reached for my belt sheath and drew the Kaybar knife. The mercenary was now encased in silver. The whole process must have taken less than five seconds, though it seemed much longer as I’d watched. Now I hefted the Kaybar and stabbed down hard, wondering how much force it would take to pierce the gleaming surface that covered the man’s vitals. I felt the jar of impact as the knife tip struck home . . . then the blade shattered with a bristling crack, like a champagne glass struck with a jackhammer.

Kaybar blades are the finest steel. They never break, ever . . . except, I thought, under several tons of pressure or perhaps when made brittle by being plunged to the temperature of liquid nitrogen . . .

Where my hand had touched the silvery surface, I still felt blistering cold.

Down on the floor, the glossy figure stirred. He rolled over slowly, rising to his hands and knees. Despite the silver sheath’s subzero exterior, the interior was obviously still warm enough for the man to survive. He might have been trying to say something . . . but the sound was muffled by the mirror shell.

One of Jacek’s nurses, obviously moved by a heroic impulse, stepped forward. It looked like she intended to whack the thug’s head with a bedpan. “No,” I said quickly. “Stay back. Everybody. Keep out of my way and I’ll deal with this. That silvery surface is so cold it’s lethal.”

“What
is
it?” Reuben whispered.

“Some kind of portable armor,” I said, “for absolute emergencies. You saw what it did to the knife . . . and what it will do to your hand if you touch him.” I clenched my own hand again, trying to squeeze back some warmth. The skin would definitely blister; even so, I was lucky I’d only made contact while the mirrored barrier was still forming, before it reached its final temperature. Otherwise, my iced-over fingers would have shattered as easily as the knifepoint. “Bullets likely won’t penetrate either,” I told Reuben. “And who knows what else that shell can resist? Flamethrowers. Acid. You could probably wear it to swim through lava.”

Reuben looked at the shining man, still just trying to steady himself on his hands and knees. Inside that protective shell, the mercenary was clearly in bad shape: hurting from his injuries and woozy from anesthetic. He might also have been having additional difficulties. “Can he breathe in there?” Reuben asked.

“I doubt it,” I replied. “The air around the shell is unbelievably cold. If any could get inside, it would freeze the man’s lungs. No,” I said, “that mirror stuff must be airtight. Once you’re inside, you only have a minute or so before you began to suffocate. The shell must be designed to dissolve before that happens.” I shook my head. “But a minute of absolute safety, no matter what’s trying to kill you? Don’t ask me how often I’ve prayed for something like that.”