He looked down at his hand and saw that a large ball of gauze was wrapped around his left hand. Now what had happened, he thought, trying to make some sense of what he was looking at? He was aware of pain radiating from his hand but it didn’t register in his brain. He could see that blood had seeped through the bandage in several places.
He shook his head, sending another jolt of pain up his arm. What the hell had they done to him, he wondered? He tried to sit up but the pain was too intense. Suddenly he retched, causing this hand to ache intolerably. He lay back down, spitting the bile from his mouth. What in God’s name had they done? He was afraid to move any part of his body. All he wanted to do was lie still and make this all go away, but it didn’t.
Holding his hand as steady as possible he forced himself to sit up and swing his legs to the floor. Carefully, he undid the little metal clasp that held the dressing in place and started to slowly unravel the gauze. The more he took off the more soaked the bandage became. As much as he didn’t want to know, he knew he had to find out what they had done. As he got near the end of the blood soaked gauze, his worst fears were starting to be realized. He could see that whatever was done to him, it was going to be bad.
He uncovered first one finger then the next, but no more. The last two fingers had been severed. He looked at his hand in disbelief. These people are crazy. What the hell were they going to do, cut him up into pieces a day at a time? Being held in the cell was crazy enough, but this. This was beyond comprehension.
He felt physically sick but fought it off. He carefully tried to place the bandage over the oozing stumps of his last two fingers.
They had been cauterized crudely to stop the majority of the bleeding. He almost threw up when he accidentally bumped one of his remaining fingers and it pushed against the stub of the missing digit. He was drenched in sweat by the time he had the bandage back in place as best as he could.
He lay back on the bed, holding his hand, wondering just how far gone the general was. Or was he the one doing this? Hell yes, he thought. No one else had this kind of power. The goons that had done this were just following his orders, not that it made his hand feel any better.
He lay on the bed, holding his wrist with his good hand. The pain was non-stop and he laid there trying to regulate his breathing, thinking about everything, but what had happened to his hand. He was just about to fall asleep when the door to the cell opened once again.
“No. Don’t touch me you son of a bitch,” he yelled rolling toward the wall and balling up. “Haven’t you crazy bastards done enough to me already?”
“Easy, it’s okay, I’m here to give you a shot to help with the pain. It is an antibiotic as well,” Jon said, holding up a syringe.
“Sure. Just keep away from me. Haven’t you done enough? What are you going to cut off this time you stupid pricks?” Raymond said.
“Look Mr. Eller. I’m telling you. We aren’t going to hurt you. This is to keep you from getting an infection and to ease the pain. I’m going to leave the needle here. Use it if you want or don’t. It’s up to you. I’m sorry it had to be this way. I don’t have anything against you personally,” Jon said, laying the syringe on the floor at the end of the bed.
Raymond laid there until he heard the cell door click closed. He rolled over to make sure they had gone and looked down at the floor. What the hell, if they had wanted to knock him out and cut something else off, they could have overpowered him like before. He picked up the syringe and stuck into his left arm and then lay back down.
Within a minute or two he could feel the intensity of the pain starting to ebb. A few minutes later he was asleep. The last thing he remembered before he drifted off what that he sure hoped he still had everything when he woke up.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
“Mr. President,” the general said, “I just wanted to keep you informed of the latest development. The results came back and they were positive for human blood. We found some hair on a comb in his quarters and sent it to the lab along with the shoe we found. It is a definite match for DNA.
Early this morning one of the men found what looks like two human fingers. I had them flown to Mercury and confirmed. Maybe the FBI or someone can lift the prints off them and then we would have a positive ID. I don’t think we are going to find much more of Mr. Eller at this point,” he said grimly.
“Good God. That poor man. Eaten by a bunch of filthy coyotes. It makes me sick to even think of it. Yes, I’ll have someone fax the prints of Raymond for comparison. I’m confident that can be performed there rather than sending the fingers back to Washington. I take it Mercury is the name of a city in Nevada?”
“Yes sir. I’ll follow up on matching the prints, but I think this is the end of the road. It makes us all sick. What a horrible way to die. God rest his soul,” the general replied.
“Well, I guess not much more can be done. I doubt after this long you are going to find much more,” the President said.
“I suspect you are right, but I still have a team searching. It would be nice if we could return some of his body for a proper burial.”
“Yes but I don’t hold up much hope of that, do you?”
“Honestly? No sir, I do not.”
“Very well general. I appreciate your diligence on this matter. I guess we are just going to have to face the reality of the situation. I never look forward to this sort of thing. It is the most unpleasant of all my jobs, but it needs to be done so we can move forward,” the President said.
“Yes sir. Did you want to send someone to replace Mr. Eller? I’ll personally bring them up to speed as quickly as possible,” the general offered.
“Honestly, I haven’t even given that a thought. No, certainly not at the present. I will need some time to decide just what course of action should be taken. You continue as before, for now at least, send your reports directly to me,” he said, “If I have any questions I will call you for clarification.”
“Yes sir, Mr. President. I am truly sorry about Mr. Eller.”
“Thank you general. Let me know when we have word on the print match. I don’t know why I think that is important, but somehow it is. The DNA should be enough, but still, I guess I feel we owe it to the poor man,” the President replied.
“I will notify you the minute I hear from them.”
The general almost did a little dance when he hung up the phone. The DNA and fingerprints will take Eller out of the equation for good, he thought. He was sure the President wouldn’t rush into a decision about sending a replacement. His first priority would be to fill the vacancy in the Department of Homeland Security. That alone would take a good deal of time and keep the President occupied.
Now he was set. The first test of the Su-12 had gone even better than the early test of the Su-11. Tomorrow would be the first orbital mission. They would use the new pulse engines to produce enough thrust to break through the top of the troposphere at 400,000 feet.
It would be a low level orbit so they could find out if anyone, including our own military tracking stations, could detect them. NORAD was of course the biggest concern. The only anxious part would be the reentry. A disaster like the last time might finish him and the BlackStar for good. There was no use borrowing trouble, he said to himself. If you look for trouble, you can usually find it.
Angie had worked later than she had planned. Several small incidents had kept her busy all day long. It was almost dark before she locked the infirmary and slipped her coat on. She walked to her car. She opened her purse and dug around for her car keys. Crap, she muttered, when she couldn’t locate them. She dug to the bottom of the bag but didn’t find them. Out of instinct, she reached into her coat pocket and felt something strange. She pulled it out and looked at it in the dimming light. It was a base security card that read: