Revolution No. 9 (4 page)

Over the next seconds the heat subsided, though not much, like a menacing presence that had taken a step back but was liable to attack again. Monks wiped his streaming eyes on his sleeve and turned around.

Freeboot was standing in front of the stove, looking entirely at ease, smiling slightly.

“Lose your clothes and hang for a while,” he said. “Sweat out the bad vibes.”

“Just tell me what you want,” Monks managed to say, half-choking on the words.

Freeboot kept watching him steadily for a long fifteen seconds. Then he strode past Monks, pushed open the door, and stood aside.

Monks stumbled out into the fresh cool night and crouched, hands on his thighs, working on getting his breath back. Another explosion of steam sounded inside the sauna,
this one louder and longer than any of the others, as if Freeboot had emptied the rest of the bucket onto the stove.

Half a minute later, the sauna door swung open. Freeboot stood framed in the firelight, damp and shining, like a burnished statue.

“All right,” he said. “Let's get down to business.”

He stepped out, took jeans and a shirt from pegs on the wall, and, still wet, pulled them on.

“Coil—your kid, we call him Coil 'cause he's wound so tight,” Freeboot said, “he tells me you're a medieval scholar.”

Monks had started feeling sharper. The shock of sudden heat and then coolness had helped.

“I'm not a scholar of anything,” he said.

“But you know about the Free Companies, right?”

“I don't understand what that has to do with me being here.”

Freeboot's gaze hardened into a stare. “I'm trying to get around to that, if you'll give me a chance.”

Monks hesitated, unwilling to enter into a genial discussion. But to be overly stubborn would be childish and could backfire.

“Yes,” he said. The Free Companies were bands of brigands, loosely organized into private armies, that scourged Europe during the Middle Ages, preying on the undefended populace.

“You think that could happen these days? Here, in the States?”

“I've never thought about it,” Monks said.

“Well, do think about it, man. There's twenty million people out there who got nothing. Outlaws, or just one step away. And
zillions
of guns.”

Freeboot nodded for emphasis, apparently satisifed that
he had made his point. Then, barefoot, he started across the clearing with a rangy feral stride.

Monks and the guards followed, this time to the large cabin with lit windows that they called the lodge. He guessed that it was close to a hundred years old. Its logs were almost three feet thick, the kind of old-growth Doug fir you hardly ever saw anymore. They had settled with age, and the chinking was gone in spots, but the structure and metal roof looked intact.

When the door opened, Monks had the sense of looking into a tableau from hundreds of years ago, the kind on display in museums. A fire crackled in the big stone hearth, lighting the room. The air was thick with the smell of generations of roasted meat. There was a long table of rough-hewn wood, strewn with liquor and beer bottles.

The two women in the room were also frozen, tableau-style, in their poses, but their clothing put them into modern times. Marguerite had changed into tight low-cut jeans and a skimpy blouse, the outfit that seemed to be a uniform for young women these days. Her long black hair and Mediterranean face gave her a look that could have graced a Renaissance portrait, if you ignored the exposed midriff and pierced navel. She looked forlorn, adding to the sense of a lady pining for a lover. Monks recalled her obvious upset at hearing that Freeboot was giving “training.”

He recognized the other woman as Shrinkwrap. She was in her late thirties, small and thin, with an aura of no-nonsense intelligence. Like everyone else, she was wearing blue jeans and had a red bandanna tied as a hippie-style headband, but her shoulder-length hair was professionally cut and well cared for. She didn't seem happy, either, with a hostile gaze that was fixed on Monks.

There was no sign of Glenn.

Freeboot crossed the room to stand beside Marguerite, his hand sliding down, with automatic familiarity, to caress her rump. She lowered her eyes, with the deferential air of a consort in the presence of her lord. He was not much taller than Marguerite, under six feet, and with his taut body hidden by clothes, he looked less fearsome than he had when he was glowing in the sauna. But his eyes still commanded.

“We've got somebody who's sick,” Freeboot said to Monks. “You willing to help?”

So: that
was
it.

“It depends,” Monks said warily.

“On what?”

“On a lot of things. I'd have to look them over and see if I
can
help, for starters.”

“What I'm
asking
you is, are you willing?”

Monks hesitated, then said, “I'll give you my opinion on the best course to take.”

“Let's quit the word-game bullshit, man. You took the Hippocratic oath, right?”

Monks's mouth opened in astonishment that Freeboot both knew the term and what it entailed. And he was right. Monks had had a vague notion of using his skills as a bargaining chip. But the truth was, there was no way he could
not
treat someone in need, insane though the circumstances might be.

“I'll do what I can,” he said. “Have you got any medical supplies?”

“Tell us what you want. We'll get it.” Freeboot seemed confident of this, and Monks decided not to point out that obtaining things like prescription medicines might not be easy or even possible.

Freeboot walked to a doorway that opened off the cabin's main room. There was no door, only a heavy wool blanket hanging in the opening.

“In here,” he said. He pulled the blanket aside and waited for Monks to go first.

Monks did, cautiously, fearing the sight of a wound that had gone untended for days.

This room was very dim, the only light coming from a single kerosene lamp turned down low. The rustic impression was enhanced by an old-fashioned enamel pitcher and basin on a dresser. There was a jumble of clothes on the floor, and two beds, with someone asleep in one of them. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out a bare arm and long fair hair splayed over the pillow. He stepped closer, assuming that this was the patient.

“Not her,” Freeboot said. “Him.”

He pointed at the other bed, and Monks realized suddenly that there was someone in that one, too, scrunched back into the corner, almost hidden in the shadows.

He felt his scalp bristle when it hit him that he was looking at a little boy, about four years old, staring back with hollow eyes in his small, pale face.

M
onks felt the surge of adrenaline that he usually only got when something really bad came through the ER doors. He knew already that this child was very sick. His first, worst fear was meningitis.

“Hi,” Monks said, managing to smile. “What's your name?”

The little boy did not answer. His hair seemed colorless, his eyes sunken and dull, and his cheeks were too thin—the terrifying look of old age in a face that was just forming.

“He can talk pretty good when he wants to,” Freeboot said from the doorway. “His name's Mandrake. The root of mystical power.”

Monks grimaced. For adults to take on absurd names was one thing; to burden a child with one was another. He was vaguely aware that the mandrake root had occult significance. He wondered if Freeboot knew that Mandrake had also been a comic-strip magician of a few decades before.

“He's your son?” Monks said.

Freeboot nodded, then stepped to the other bed and shook the shoulder of the person sleeping in it. The shake was not gentle.

“This is his mom,” Freeboot said.

The woman stirred, then slowly sat up. She was in her mid-twenties, sallow and blowsy. With her messy lank hair, she had the look of a flower child gone to seed.

“I brought a doctor, like you broads wanted,” Freeboot said to her with clear sarcasm, even contempt. “You can watch him do his doctor thing.”

So—it seemed that Monks owed his presence here to the women. “I need more light,” he said.

Marguerite turned up the kerosene lantern and brought it to the bedside. Monks leaned closer over the boy, moving slowly so as not to frighten him.

“How you doing, Mandrake?” Monks said, and sat beside him on the bed. “Not feeling too good, huh? I'm a doctor. I'm going to try to make you feel better.”

He smoothed the boy's hair back, feeling his forehead. It was clammy and cool, and Monks relaxed a notch. If it were meningitis, Mandrake would have a burning fever, and be dead within a few hours.

There were still plenty of other serious possibilities.

Monks's hand went to Mandrake's mouth and eased it open. The lips were cracked, and the inside looked dry and cottony. His breath did not have the sweet milky smell of a normal child's at that age. It was sharp and oddly fruity.

The first diagnostic tick registed in his brain—acetone. Ketoacidosis?

“Can you tell me what's hurting you, Mandrake?” he said. “Your head? Tummy?”

Mandrake did not respond.

But his mother suddenly said, “Hi,” in a cracked, sleepy voice.

Monks waited, thinking she was going to tell him something. But she only watched him with vague eyes, then looked around the room as if trying to remember where she was. Such a heavy sleep—especially in a mother with a sick child—suggested sedation.

“He's had tummy aches,” Marguerite said. “He's been throwing up.”

“Every kid has tummy aches and throws up,” Freeboot muttered. He stomped around with a few agitated steps, then subsided.

“Anything else?” Monks asked.

“He's pissing the bed again,” Freeboot said. “After we broke him of it a year ago.”

“Drinking lots of water?”

“Yeah.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“He started acting weird a couple of weeks ago,” Marguerite said.

“Acting weird how?”

“Just weird,” she said defensively. “He
looked
sick. Didn't want to go out and play.”

Freeboot snorted in derision. “He's just scared of the bad weather.”

Monks lowered the covers from Mandrake's chin down to his waist and lifted up his pajama top. His fingers felt the padded waistband of a diaper.

“I'm just going to touch your tummy for a second, Mandrake,” he said. “It won't hurt, I promise.” Monks gently massaged the abdomen, feeling for lumps or abnormalities, and continuing his covert check for signs of abuse. So far, there hadn't been anything obvious. At least it did not seem that the child had been actively harmed.

Mandrake only continued to watch Monks apathetically. Most kids that age would have squirmed, cried, had to be re
strained by a parent or a nurse. Such passivity would have been a dangerous enough sign in an adult. In a child, it was chilling.

Monks gently pinched a fold of skin between his thumb and forefinger. The skin felt thin, without turgor, its usual rubbery quality. When he released it, it didn't snap back flat, but subsided only gradually, like a slowly collapsing tent.

Along with the smell of acetone, that was the second solid bit of diagnostic information.

“Has he been eating?” Monks asked.

“Like a little pig,” Freeboot said, with an air of triumph. “Now you tell me, would he be doing that if he was really sick?”

Monks's jaw tightened, his anger moving another notch toward the red zone. It was hard to imagine that anyone could ignore the fact of a child eating desperately, but shrinking to skin and bones. And yet, Monks had seen similar neglect many times.

He pulled the pajama top back down and tucked Mandrake in again.

“Okay, Mandrake,” he said. “I'm going to talk to your dad. I'll be back to visit you again in a little while.”

Monks patted the boy's shoulder, stood, and motioned with his head for Freeboot to leave the room with him. It was an automatic gesture, developed over many years of being in charge at a patient's bedside. But he saw Freeboot's eyes narrow, and realized that even this tiny assertion registered as an insult to his authority.

Freeboot turned his back and pushed through the curtain, leaving Monks to follow.

“Freeboot thinks it's all in his head,” the mother said, from her bed. Apparently, she was starting to grasp what was happening. “Like, you know, he
wants
to be sick.”

“Freeboot's wrong,” Monks said curtly.

“Do you know what it is?”

He shook his head, although in truth, he had a pretty good idea.

He stepped out through the curtain. Marguerite was lingering outside the room.

“What kind of drugs is she on?” he asked, pointing back toward the woman in bed. If she had borne or breast-fed Mandrake while using—or had contracted HIV or hepatitis—that could add an ugly complication.

“Motherlode? She's heavy into 'codes.” This was slang for oxycodones—synthetic opiates.

“For a long time?”

“She always messed around with them. This last year or so, she's been pretty much out of it all the time. She just lays around.” Marguerite's resentment was clear. “Freeboot won't let her sleep with Mandrake, because he says she'll roll over on him and smother him.”

It was a tender sentiment for the mother of one's child.

“Who takes care of him?” Monks asked.

“Me, most of the time.”

“When's the last time you saw him drink water?”

“Just a little while ago,” she said. “I checked up on him as soon as we got back.” Her gaze faltered, and Monks was tempted to finish the sentence aloud—
from kidnapping you at gunpoint
.

“It's very important that he keeps it up,” Monks said. “At least a couple of glasses every hour. Try to give him some more now. If he won't drink, tell me immediately.”

As he spoke the words, he realized, with a mix of helplessness, anger, and fear, that he was involving himself, even assuming responsibility. But right now, keeping that little boy alive was what mattered more than anything else.

Monks walked on into the lodge's main room. Freeboot was standing in its center like a presiding judge, somber,
arms folded, with Shrinkwrap, Taxman, and Hammerhead as the jury.

“Mandrake needs immediate hospitalization,” Monks said.

The room's attention turned to Freeboot, with gazes shifting, openly or covertly, to watch his reaction. He remained poker-faced.

“What's the matter with him?” Freeboot demanded.

“I'd need a lab report to tell you.”

“Then how do you know he should go to a hospital?”

“First off, he's dehydrated to a life-threatening degree,” Monks said. “That's why he's drinking so much water. His body's trying to stay up with the need. But he's passing it faster than he can take it in. The only way to replace it at that rate is by IV.”

“We're not going to hook him up to any of that shit.”

“Hooking him up to ‘that shit' will keep him alive,” Monks said. “There are other problems, too. You said he's eating a lot, but he's losing weight, right? With nausea and vomiting? A normal kid that age is a bundle of energy, but he's lying there like an old man. He needs a thorough workup by specialists, and he needs it now.”

Freeboot shook his head. “Not for Mandrake.”

“Why not?” Monks said. “Is it money? I can get you help. I'll pay for it myself, if it comes to that.”

“We got money,” Freeboot said, with clear condescension.

“What, then? Are you worried about the police? We can keep them out of it.”

Freeboot shook his head again, this time impatiently—the gesture of a man wasting his breath on someone too dense to understand. Then his forehead knotted with worry, as if his own pain was showing through. Monks couldn't tell if it was genuine or purely a performance.

“I want what's
best
for him,” Freeboot said. “But it's complicated. This is all about
faith
.”

Monks wasn't surprised to find an element of religion woven into this. He had encountered a number of people who resisted medical care for religious reasons, and he knew of instances where it had resulted in death—too often, the death of a child.

“I'd be glad to hear about your beliefs some other time,” Monks said. “But don't tell me you'd let your son be a martyr to them.”

“I didn't say beliefs. I said faith. There's a difference.”

“I've got plenty of respect for faith,” Monks said. “But it wasn't faith that built the truck that brought me here, or the guns you're holding me with. It was reason. And so is medicine.”

Freeboot's gaze turned appraising, as if to concede that Monks might be worth taking seriously, after all.

“What you see with Mandrake—it's all adding up to something in your mind, I can tell,” Freeboot said. “I can think about it better if I know what it is.”

Monks's many years of training had made him cautious about pronouncing a diagnosis until he was as certain as possible. But the normal rules were not operating here, and Freeboot seemed to be offering a glimmer of rationality. Monks decided not to waste the chance.

“Next time he urinates, collect it in a clean container and bring it to me,” he said.

Freeboot looked surprised, even startled.

“What's that going to tell you?” he said warily.

“Maybe nothing,” Monks said. “Maybe a lot.”

Freeboot barked, “Marguerite!” She appeared quickly in the doorway of Mandrake's room.

“Get the kid to pee in a cup and bring it here,” Freeboot commanded.

She looked surprised, too, but went back into the room without a question.

“You must be ready for some chow,” Freeboot said to Monks. “How about a drink first? Vodka, right?”

“No, thanks.”

Freeboot's eyes flared again with quick anger.

“You don't seem to understand, man,” he said. “You're our guest.”

He stalked to the rough wooden table and picked up a small bottle by the neck, upending it and taking a long swig. The liquor was clear but oily, with something thick and pinkish bobbing inside it. When he set it down, Monks glimpsed the label: Mezcal con Gusano Monte Alban. It was mescal, the real thing, and the “something” was an agave worm.

He also noticed that the fingertips of Freeboot's hands were scarred into thick lumps of callus—maybe a childhood injury from touching something hot.

A quick series of beeps sounded across the room. Monks realized that they came from the belt radio that Hammerhead wore. They seemed to have a cadence, like a code.

Hammerhead pulled the radio free and spoke into it. “Brother, this is Site Three. Over.”

A man's voice spoke, backed by faint static. “Brother, this is Captain America, requesting permission to enter. Over.”

Hammerhead hesitated, his gaze flicking toward the bedroom, where Marguerite was still with Mandrake.

“What's your position, Captain America?” Hammerhead barked. “Over.”

“I'm right outside, man.” Even with the static, Captain America sounded annoyed.

Hammerhead looked questioningly at Taxman. Taxman nodded.

With obvious reluctance, Hammerhead said, “Permission granted.”

The lodge door opened. Another man stepped inside. He was about thirty, tall and good-looking, with wavy blond
hair and an air of assurance. He carried an AK-47 or similar-type assault rifle with a large night-vision scope.

He stepped to attention, facing Taxman, and raised the rifle to port arms, extending it forward as if he were offering it.

“Take this, brother, may it serve you well,” he intoned. “Security was turned over to command of Sidewinder at ohone-hundred hours.”

Taxman acknowledged this, with a slight lifting of his chin.

Captain America relaxed, slinging the rifle over his shoulder, muzzle down, and glancing at Monks incuriously.

“So, Marguerite's back?” he asked, looking around.

“We put in a long day, man,” Hammerhead said immediately, with a trace of belligerence. “She needs to rest.”

Freeboot swung toward Hammerhead with the riveting gaze that Monks was starting to think of as “the stare.”

“You don't talk like that to a made
maquis
, HH,” Freeboot said. His tone was harsh with warning.

“
I'm
the one who was on the mission with her,” Hammerhead said sullenly, but his eyes shifted away.