Hell and Gone (6 page)

“
Our
employers?” Hardie said, but already his mind was reeling. Was Mann actually here to recruit him? Have Hardie join their little team of assassins? Good God—no.
Hell,
no. Put a bullet in his brain right now, be done with it. Or maybe he’d play ball just long enough to get his hands on a gun so that he could finish off Mann here, once and for all.

“You’ll be briefed down below—and let me tell you, the staff is looking forward to meeting with you.”

Now his patience had run out. “I’m not going to work for you. You can forget it.”

“Work for me? Oh, that’s funny, Charlie. Seriously. No, I don’t think you’d be a good fit for my team.”

“Then what’s this about a staff?”

“I think you’re going to find working with them extremely rewarding. I mean, they’re all truly good people. Heroes, really.”

Again, Mann was fucking with him.

“Oh, almost forgot. I have a present for you.”

At long last she opened the long cardboard box on the table. Hardie thought there could be anything in there. A shotgun. Dozen roses. A slender chain saw.

Instead, Mann removed a black cane and gently slid it across the table toward Hardie.

“A little parting gift.”

“You can shove that up your ass,” Hardie replied.

“That’s extraordinarily tempting,” Mann said. “But before I do that, why don’t you try standing up? It’s why I removed the handcuffs, you know.”

Hardie put his palms on the table and stood up. Immediately his right leg gave out and he slammed his ribs into the edge of the table before slipping down even farther. Mann flew forward and caught his head in record time, her hands grabbing his ears. She yanked forward. Hardie struggled to find his footing, but it was as if his right leg weren’t even there. Left arm—useless.

“You’ve suffered some pretty serious neurological damage,” Mann said, her breath hot in his face. “Your leg probably won’t work all that well for the rest of your life.”

“Bite me.”

Mann bared her teeth. “You saying you don’t want the job? Because it doesn’t matter to me. In fact, it would thrill me if you spit in my face and tell me you don’t want this job.”

Hardie obliged her, launching a wad of saliva that struck her cheek and began a lazy roll down her face.

“I don’t want the job,” he said.

Mann reached out her tongue and slowly licked the spittle from her face, as if savoring it.

“Wonder if Kendra will spit in my face, too, when I show up in her bedroom tonight. Maybe I’ll force her to lick my face, ask her if she tastes her dead husband. Think she’d like that?”

Before Hardie could reply, Mann let go, and Hardie’s own body weight pulled him down fast, the edge of the table slamming into his jaw. Vision went white for a second. The pain like a firecracker in his skull. He spun, landed facedown. Mann was over the table and straddling him as he struggled to roll over. Again, she leaned in close.

“Nothing would make me happier than to kill you, then go kill your family. Because you’re right, Charlie. No such thing as
ancient history.
”

“You so much as even look at my wife or son I’ll—”

Mann grabbed Hardie’s ears and slammed his head into the floor hard enough to make him bite his tongue.

“Don’t write a check your ass can’t cash, old friend. In about sixty seconds, I’m going to leave this room, take an elevator to the surface, where I’ll receive my shot, and be on my way to have that drink I mentioned. Right after that, they’re going to seal up the entranceway nice and tight and permanent. With cement and steel, just like they do whenever there’s a new arrival to site number seven seven three four. There’s no way out, Charlie. None. That’s the point of this facility—no escape.
Ever.
All you can do is grab your cane and take the elevator down to your new life. Don’t worry. I’ll be toasting you back in the real world. And if you fail to perform your duties, just know that I’ll be the first one they’ll call. And then I will
delight
in destroying your family.”

Mann climbed off Hardie’s body, staring at him carefully, waiting for a reaction. Hardie didn’t give her one. After a few moments she made a
pfft
sound with her lips and left the room.

Sure enough, after a few minutes Hardie could hear the sound of construction: the banging of steel, the muffled scrape of mortar hoes against some hard surface, the shrill buzzing of power saws.

Which was more than a little troubling.

Hardie pulled himself up off the ground, using his only good arm and only good leg to steady himself on elbow and knee. Balancing himself on that single knee, he reached out and grabbed the edge of the table, slowly working himself up again. He took the black cane from the tabletop. His right leg was still numb and fluttery, like a phantom limb. He needed the table.

He took a series of wobbly steps and, by way of sheer luck, eventually crashed into the door that Mann had used to exit. Hardie balanced himself, grabbed the handle. Locked tight. Somewhere above him, some unseen construction crew labored. Clanging. Pouring. Welding. Sealing.

“HEYYYYYYYYY!” Hardie screamed, so hard that he lost his balance, a misstep exacerbated by a sudden coughing fit.

“HEYYYYYYYYY UP THERE, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

No response came. Either they were unable to hear him above the din of the power tools or the construction crew was dedicated to doing their job and their job alone.

Hardie made his way back to the table and sat down and considered his options.

He didn’t have to think long—because his options sucked.

So little of this made sense. It was like snapping awake from a horrible, sweat-soaked dream, only to discover that the world was about to end, the H-bombs were dropping everywhere, and boy, you’re about to wish you’d stayed in that bad dream.

The elevator door was the only way out.

Out was not up; out was down. Deeper into the bad dream.

To his
staff
—is that what she’d said? What the hell did she mean by that?

The stubborn knot in Hardie’s gut told him to stay put. Just sit here and do nothing. Eventually he’d dehydrate, maybe even be lucky enough to pass out. Just to spite Mann. Write a little message on the wall for her before he finally expired.
Hope you choke on the olive in your fancy-ass cocktail.

Yeah.

Sometimes after a tough case Hardie would find himself hanging out on Nate Parish’s broken couch in his Philly PD office. One of the fabric-covered arms had long ago snapped, leaving a perfect V in which Hardie could rest his aching head. Hardie would crash on that couch, sipping a can of lukewarm beer, too keyed up to go home, too tired to move. Once, he’d said to Nate:

“We’ve been really busy lately.”

“We’re always busy. Remember what Pascal said.”

Hardie had no idea who Pascal was—some South Philly mobster he’d never heard of, maybe?

“What’s that?”

“All human evil comes from a single cause—man’s inability to sit still in a room.”

Nate turned out to be right, of course.

Hardie stepped into the elevator cage, slid the old-fashioned accordion-style gate shut. His grandmother’s old apartment building used to have an elevator like this. As a kid he’d constantly worry about getting his fingers chopped off when the gate slid open. That never prevented him from running his fingers over the greasy gate anyway. He pressed one of only two buttons in the elevator—ancient semen-colored circles of plastic adorned with the chipped words
UP
and
DOWN
. He seemed to already be
UP
. That left
DOWN
. Hardie pressed the button, which lit up. Somewhere, ancient machinery kick-started; pulleys and cables started turning. Hardie’s body jolted as the car slid downward. Here we go.

Going down.

Down.

Down.

Down.

What was down here? Hardie tried to decode Mann’s cryptic statements about this place—site 7734, she’d called it. A maximum-security facility. Buried deep in the earth. (If the length of this elevator ride was any indication, she was telling the truth about that, at least.) But for what? Was he being sent down for human experimentation? Imprisonment? Torture?

Suddenly Hardie got the idea that he may have been better off sitting up in that waiting room and withering away slowly.

After what seemed like an absurdly long time, the cage touched down at the bottom of the shaft. The air was noticeably cooler down here. Hardie braced himself with the cane, realizing that, yeah, he really should have stayed up top. He stabbed the
UP
button, but now it refused to work. Something clanked, but the mechanism failed to restart. Well, he was stuck with his choice now. Time to see it through.

Hardie reached out with this right hand to slide open the gate. He took a step forward, supporting his weight with the cane. The moment he stepped out of the elevator, he heard the strangest noise.

Applause.

FOUR PEOPLE IN
dark brown uniforms stood in a half circle, clapping their hands, all eyes focused on
him
. Hardie froze in place. They kept applauding anyway, seemingly oblivious to his shock. A bearded guy gave him a thumbs-up and mouthed something like,
Right on.

Oh fuck,
Hardie thought. What
was
this?

Their uniforms had deep red piping and cargo pockets, and were paired with black leather belts, black leather wristbands, and even black leather boots. The four of them took a collective step back, as if to encourage Hardie to take another step forward, come on, now, that’s it, that’s a good boy. Welcoming him into their communal bosom, all smiles and cheers and even a few
woo-hoos
. Hearty cries of congratulations in languages he didn’t recognize—but the overall meaning was clear.

The bearded one broke ranks and nervously shuffled forward, still pounding his hands together. Smiling through his dark, neatly trimmed beard.

“Welcome, Warden,” he said in a broad Australian accent. “Boy, are we glad to finally have you here.”

Warden?

“Well, aren’t you going to say something?”

Hardie looked over the Aussie’s shoulder and saw cages, and two figures sitting inside those cages.

All at once Hardie realized what this was.

This was a secret prison; these were the guards.

And all this
applause
bullshit was the mockery before the crucifixion, and here were his tormenters. Fucking with Your Victim, New-Testament Style. Sure, yeah, now they were shouting and proclaiming him the King of the Jews and shit. Next they’d be dividing up his new suit in dice games and shoving a crown of sharp thorns down on his tender scalp.

Not if he could help it.

Hardie took a step forward, scanning the four guards quickly. Three men, one woman. All wearing the same uniform. Tools and gadgets hanging from their belts. Plastic restraints. Tasers. A few syringes topped with sturdy plastic caps. Still applauding and opening the circle up wider for Hardie.

No doubt getting ready to pounce his ass.

Hardie switched the cane into his other hand, using his weak arm to balance himself, hoping it would be enough to support his own body weight. Because the moment the bearded Aussie took another step, Hardie lunged out and grabbed up a fistful of the guy’s uniform and then pulled him in for a violent head butt.

Skull bone made contact with nose bone; bright lights flashed. Hardie’s head suddenly felt like it had been blown apart by a cherry bomb. But so what? His head already hurt like hell. What was pain on top of pain?

The Aussie guard’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. He was not expecting the forehead-to-nose action. Hardie tightened his grip and used the Aussie’s body to support himself as he spun around and whipped the wooden cane across the head of the next advancing guard—a blond, pale guy. The guy cried out as his head snapped to the side. Turning his attention back to the bearded guard, Hardie gave him a push in the direction of the other guards. The Aussie became a human bowling ball; his friends the pins. Then, as fast as he could, Hardie started to make a beeline for the door he’d just stepped through.

Hardie knew it was practically useless. It was four against one, and he was down two limbs. But Hardie also wasn’t about to stand around for mockery and whatever else they had in mind. He vowed to fight until he stopped breathing. At least then there was the illusion of control.

Who knows? Maybe he’d luck out, and they’d skip the torture and kill him quick.

Hardie found the handle, pulled open the door enough so that he could throw himself inside the metal cage. He half turned and yanked the door shut behind him—but two hands shoved through the space between the metal door and the frame.

Fine. Hardie let it open a few inches to give himself enough room…and then he
really
pulled the door shut.

The screams were otherworldly—strange profanity in a foreign tongue. Fingers wriggled like white worms in the crack between the door and the frame. Hardie pulled even tighter and relished the agonized screams. Oh, please. Here’s hoping it made these bastards so furious that they killed him immediately rather than drag it out.

“NO!” a female voice shouted.

“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, MATE!”

“DO NOT GO UP!”

“NO! NO NO NO!”

Hardie let the door open a fraction of an inch, giving the wriggling worms enough room to remove themselves from the situation. As soon as the last fingernail cleared the space, Hardie yanked the door shut a final time, then staggered backward until his back collided with the other end of the cage. No one was more surprised than Hardie. He’d made it this far. Could he actually make it out of here? Somehow?

Adrenaline had carried him this far, but he felt like he’d used up his last reserves.

No matter.

All he had to do now was push the up button, figure out his next move once he was back in that waiting room. Maybe he could find a way out. Maybe he could even catch up with Mann. Snap her neck and ask her if she’d still like to meet his wife and son.

A face appeared in the grille. Bearded Aussie guy.

“WARDEN!” he shouted. “DON’T DO THIS! PLEASE DON’T DO THIS. WE DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO—”

“Fuck you,” Hardie muttered, then stabbed the up button with an index finger. A second later the bearded guy sighed, unclipped something from his belt, jammed it against the outside of the metal cage, then squeezed it.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-POP

And then:

white

hot

crazy

Nothing

A disjointed moment later, Hardie was being dragged out of the cage, drooling and twitching. Slowly he pieced together what had happened. A Taser. They must have jammed a Taser against the metal cage, pulled the trigger, and the electricity that sailed through the cage must have shocked him unconscious.

Now rough hands were dragging him along the cold concrete floor. Any minute now the beatings were likely to commence. Hardie knew it. He’d tried. Lost. Welcome to your new life sentence, dumb ass. You should have stayed upstairs. Starved yourself to death. Would have been the classy, stoic move. Better than being thrown into a secret prison cell for the rest of your life.

But instead of a punch—

The bearded Aussie cautiously touched his face. “Can you see me, mate? Are you okay?”

Hardie nodded. At least, he thought he nodded. All he knew, his head may have bobbled around as though it were attached to his body with a coiled spring.

“The hell were you trying to do?” Bearded Guy said. “Didn’t they tell you about the elevator? How it’s a one-way trip?

Hardie shook his head again, incoherently.

“Jesus…look, if you were to have gone back up and made your way outside, you would have triggered the death mechanism. They didn’t tell you about the death mechanism? Anyway, listen to me now. If you had gone up, you would have…well, you would killed everybody in here.
Everybody.
Including me.”

The other three guards glared down at him, a mixture of disappointment and checked fury on their faces. All like,
How dare he almost trip the death mechanism?

Finally Hardie’s lips stopped trembling enough for him to attempt a few words in the English language. “Would have…tripped the…death
what?
”

“The death mechanism, mate. They didn’t tell you about it?”

Death mechanism.
The words apparently carried some kind of meaning, but Hardie didn’t understand.

Utter exhaustion washed over him. Hardie could tell his body was trembling, but he didn’t actually feel it until a few moments later, as the guards stooped over to pick him up from the cement floor. His vision went woozy, and the muscles in his neck stiffened, as if to choke him into unconsciousness in a desperate attempt at self-preservation. No. He had to stay awake, soak up every detail.

What was this place?

Where was it?

Why was he here?

He had no idea.

The guards guided his stumbling ass through a confusing series of rooms. One looked like a cafeteria. The next was a laundry room furnished with—strangely—refrigerators. Then somebody’s spartan bedroom, followed by a room that looked like a primitive security-department control booth, then another bedroom, then a third bedroom, which was apparently his, because they eased him onto a creaky bed there and told him to rest a while. There was a lot of work ahead of them.

Hardie had no intention of sleeping. Just wanted to ease back for a few seconds, take a few deep, cleansing breaths, close his eyes, maybe, for a microsecond or two…