The Jigsaw Man (35 page)

buck knife in my right hand, and as quietly as I could,

started creeping toward Dr. Marshall's exposed back. I

only made it five feet before he turned and spotted me.

Noise hadn't given me away; it was Andrew. He'd been

facing me as I stepped clear of the stairwell and let's

j u s t say his poker face needed work. Andrew's eyes shot

wide open and damned if he didn't keep staring at me

until his father had turned around to see what was dis¬

tracting him.

Thanks, Andrew. Just the help I needed.

W h e n Dr. Marshall saw me, he didn't seem nearly as

shocked as his son. He actually looked happy, smiling a

big toothy out-of-his-freaking-mind grin that scared the

bejesus out of me. Fear wasn't an option right now, so I

threw caution to the wind and charged Dr. Marshall in a

wild offensive attack before he had a chance to defend

himself. I think my boldness surprised him, his smile

faltering as I rapidly closed the gap, bloody buck knife

held out in front of me like a medieval knight's jousting

lance.

Dr. Marshall spun around, searching for a weapon,

but there was n o t h i n g within arm's reach. I'd have taken

him right then, quick and easy, if my left knee had held

up for a few more strides. W i t h victory and revenge

literally five feet away, my knee gave out and I dropped

face-first to the carpet at Dr. Marshall's feet.
I
hit hard,

stars dancing in front of my eyes as my chin bounced

off the floor. My knee was t h r o b b i n g horribly, too, but

I had worse problems than pain. I had to shake it off

and get to my feet—fast.

Dr. Marshall had other ideas.

W h i l e I was sprawled on the floor, he stomped on my

hand, savagely grinding his heel down until I screamed

and released the knife. He kicked the blade under the

neatly made bed off to our left. Then he started kicking

me in the ribs, arms, and legs—anywhere he could get

a swing at—really laying the boots to me. I curled into

a ball and tried to protect my head.

K n o w i n g being defensive would only get me killed, I

uncurled and launched myself at his legs, grabbing

them and tugging him off balance. He tumbled to the

floor, landing with a satisfying
thump,
but he didn't

miss a beat and was back on top of me in seconds, flail¬

ing away at my head and chest with his fists.
I
landed a

few good licks of my own, but he was stronger than me

and had me pinned to the floor. My mind wasn't too

clear, what with the beating I was taking, but
I
was lu¬

cid enough to know I needed to get my hands on one of

my other weapons if I wanted to win this fight. Trouble

was, the gun was sitting on the top stair, out of the

equation. The switchblade was within reach, in my

right pant pocket, but with Dr. Marshall straddling my

lap, it was impossible for me to get at it.

Dr. Marshall smacked me once more in the face,

crushing my nose, nearly k n o c k i n g m e out cold. It didn't

hurt that much, but by the time I shook the cobwebs

from my head, he'd wrapped his long powerful fingers

around my neck and was trying to strangle me. The

surgeon's fingers were strong, digging into my flesh and

tightening like ten baby boa constrictors. I tried to

punch him in the face, but I didn't have much fight left

in my battered body and my punch barely fazed him.

He started smiling again, thinking he had me and there

was n o t h i n g I could do about it.

Wrong, asshole/

As my vision started to blur and my lungs screamed

for oxygen, I slipped my right hand inside my shirt and

grabbed hold of the last hope I had of surviving this

fight. My fingers tightened around the shaft of the

wooden cross, the marker that had been meant to adorn

my grave. Right sentiment—wrong body!

I pulled the cross free, my fist wrapped around the

top bar with the sharpened shaft p r o t r u d i n g out be¬

tween my second and third fingers, looking nasty, like

something Abraham Van Helsing might use on a vam¬

pire hunt. I drove the makeshift weapon up at Dr. Mar¬

shall's body with every ounce of strength I had left. He

saw it coming but couldn't get out of the way. The crude

wooden blade caught him in the throat, under his chin,

and all ten inches of the shaft slid up through the roof

of his mouth and into his brain, j a r r i n g to a stop when

the tip scraped the roof of his skull and my bloody

knuckles slammed into the bottom of his jaw.

Dr. Marshall went rigid for a moment, his fingers

clawing into my throat even tighter than before, but

then his body relaxed and his fingers went limp. I

tugged the cross out of his ruined throat and a torrent

of blood poured out of the wound down onto m e , a

crimson rain mixed with chunks of gray matter that

looked like oatmeal cookie dough. Dr. Marshall fell off

me, tipping over backward, dead long before he hit the

floor.

I should hare felt jubilant, whooping it up, celebrat¬

ing my grand victory over the man who'd ruined my

life, but I didn't. Emotionally, I didn't feel anything.

Spent, maybe. Empty. I lay on the bloody floor, covered

in gore, hurting like hell, and having a hard time catching

my breath. There was still work to do and I should be

getting at it, but man, I was tired. All I could think of

was how nice it would be to close my eyes and take a

nap—a quick power nap to recharge the batteries and

forget about all my problems for fifteen minutes.

Yeah, right. Who are you trying to kid?

If I closed my eyes now I knew the game was over. I'd

never get up again. The next sight I'd see was the barrel

of one of the security guard's guns as he kicked me

awake before putting a bullet in my head. I hadn't come

this far to quit now. Mind you, maybe with Drake and

Dr. Marshall now both dead, I didn't really need to blow

up the castle. I'd killed the two men most responsible

for the crimes committed here, so maybe I could j u s t

crawl over to the stairs, pick up my gun, j a m it in my

mouth and call it a life. N o t a bad idea.

The easy road wasn't in the cards for m e , though.

There would be files, and lab reports, and j o u r n a l s , and

videotapes, and who knew what other proof around

here that would show that what N a t h a n Marshall had

been working on actually worked. He was out of his

mind, insane with his obsession to help his son, but

those things aside—he
was
a brilliant man. There was

no denying his crazy Frankenstein experiments were a

whopping success. I couldn't bite a bullet and leave all

that documentation lying around for some other scien¬

tist to discover. The police would turn it all over to

someone higher up the ladder, and eventually the gov¬

ernment scientists would swarm this place like ants to a

honey jar. That was unacceptable.

Sure, Dr. Marshall's work had the potential to help a

lot of people but it wouldn't work out that way. Some¬

one with power would corrupt things, maybe see the

potential to create soldiers that could be continually

re-fitted with new bodies after their current ones broke

down or were damaged. They wouldn't need to retrain

troops—all they had to do was take the experienced

soldier's head and give him a nice new strong body to

fight another day with. Maybe none of that would ever

happen and I was j u s t being paranoid, but the thought

of an army of super soldiers scared me, and the vision

of warehouses full of readily available flesh suits danc¬

ing in their watery tanks chilled me to the bone.

No way. Bring this place to the ground, Mike. Don't leave

nothin' but a big smoking hole.

My mind made up, I tried to sit up and get moving.

Bad idea. My k n e e , wrist, ribs, nose, and body hurt so

bad
I
didn't think there was any way
I
could ever get to

my feet. For a heartbeat, I seriously worried that I

might be too beaten and battered to carry out my plan,

but I pushed those negative thoughts aside. It was

crunch time.

Get up, man! If not for you, get your ass up and do this for

Junie and for all the other innocent people who've died here

while Marshall and Drake were playing God.

That got me moving, and although I felt like I'd

gone fifteen rounds with Lennox Lewis, I gritted my

teeth and stood up. My head spun again, and I nearly

went down, but I took several deep breaths and man-,

aged to stay on my feet.

I
ignored Andrew for the moment. He'd been sitting

silently through everything that j u s t happened, staring

at me now like I was from outer space.
I
didn't know if

he was relieved I'd killed his father or in massive shock,

but before I dealt with him
I
had to crack open all the

gas valves in the room while I still had the strength to

do it.

Silently, I went back to work.

C H A P T E R F O R T Y

The tower room was t u r n i n g out to be a better place to

start the chain of explosions than I'd originally thought.

N o t only were there four oxygen gas valve stations in

the room, but there was also a row of six large stand-up

oxygen tanks strapped together against the far wall. It

looked like they were there strictly as a backup to the

plumbed-in system, a fail-safe j u s t in case the regular

system wasn't working. There was also a portable ethylene cylinder hooked to the metal safety rail on the

side of Andrew's bed. I cranked them all wide open,

and then sat down on the bed to wait for the gases to

saturate the room. W h e n this place went up, it was go¬

ing to be one mother of a boom.

Too bad I won't be around to see it.

W i t h the work done, I couldn't ignore Andrew any¬

more. I didn't want t o , anyway. I wanted to talk to him

while we still had the chance. He was sitting in his

chair with a funny look on his face, silently watching

me with an accusing glare that made it hard for me to

know where to start. Sure I was sorry he'd been forced

to watch me kill his father, but I wasn't the least bit

sorry about what I'd done. It would have been nice to

do it cleaner, but it didn't change the fact that N a t h a n

Marshall had to die—that he
deserved
to die—arid I'd

do it again without hesitation. Hopefully I could ex¬

plain my reasons to Andrew, but I wouldn't blame him

if he hated me.

"Listen, Andrew, my name is Michael Fox and I just

wanted you to know—"

"Are you going to blow this place up?" he asked.

His first question didn't have anything to do with his

dad and that caught me off guard. "Ah, yeah. That's the

plan, anyway. Look, I'm real sorry about—"

"Will it work?" he cut me off again. "I mean, you're

using more than just the gas in this room, I hope. This

is a big building."

I didn't know how to respond to the way Andrew was

acting. Didn't he want to discuss his father's death?

Maybe not. I decided j u s t to play along. "I know it is.

I've opened every gas valve I can find in the building,

and not j u s t the oxygen. I found a shitload of portable

ethylene and ether tanks down on the second and third

floors. Even better, before I started sneaking around, I

caused a massive oxygen and natural gas leak hi the base

ment. Gas has been free-flowing and mixing throughout

the building for quite a while now. I can't guarantee it,

but my guess it there won't be much left of this place

once I'm done."

"Good," Andrew said, and shocked me by smiling.

For a moment I wondered if he might be as crazy as

his old man, but I soon realized it was a genuine smile.

He was honestly happy and relieved to hear what I'd

been up to.

"You're okay with that?" I asked.

"Absolutely. Listen, Michael, if I could step out of

this chair, I'd do the same thing."

That was good to hear. N o w , for the hard question.

"And y o u r father? I hope you understand—"

"He was an evil bastard that got what he deserved,"

Andrew said, his quiet tone layered with years of bitter¬

ness and deep-seated, hatred for the man lying between

us on the blood-soaked floor. "I understand perfectly.

Don't get me wrong, there was a day I loved my father

dearly, thought he could do no wrong and was a saint

for trying so hard to help me. That was before I found

out how many people he was hurting on my behalf. I

begged him to stop, but he j u s t wouldn't listen."

"It's a shame," I said, trying to find some words that

might allay his guilty feelings. "Your father was a bril¬

liant m a n — "

"He was brilliant, sure, but his brilliance took a

detour into madness and crazy obsession somewhere