Beep… they passed the fifteenth floor.
“We’re almost there,” Klimas said. He reached to his chest webbing, pressed a black button. “Radio check, do you read?”
The three SEALs — Bosh, little Ramierez and the big fella, Roth — all nodded. Clarence nodded as well.
Beep… they passed the sixteenth floor.
“Bosh, cover the right,” Klimas said. “Ramierez, the left. Roth, out and left. I’ll go out and right.”
Bosh and Ramierez knelt by their assigned corners, M4s pointed straight up. Noise suppressors attached to the barrels made the weapons look long and mean.
Clarence drew his Glock 19 from the thigh holster strapped to the outside of his suit.
“Where do you want me?”
Klimas raised an eyebrow. “You? I want you to stay out of our way and move when we tell you to move.”
Maybe it was the impossible stress of the situation, or maybe his frustration with Margaret sitting squarely in harm’s way, he wasn’t sure, but Clarence felt a wave of annoyance.
“I know what I’m doing in a fight, Klimas,” he said. “I was Special Forces.”
Ramierez laughed and shook his head.
Klimas grinned. “Special Forces, huh? How nice. Know what you’re not? A member of this team. You’re here because Margaret doesn’t want anyone exposed to Mitchell’s hydras. You’ve got the CBRN suit so you can handle him. Other than that, kindly stay out of our way.”
Beep… they passed the seventeenth floor.
Cooper heard the door open. A rectangle of hallway light filled the dark room, lit up the face of the bloated corpse on top of him.
“Gross,” one voice said. “It stinks in here.”
“Dead body,” said the other. “Damn, it smells too far gone to eat.”
Cooper couldn’t see them. He heard their feet shuffling across the carpet… coming closer…
“Check under the bed,” one voice said.
“Chuck,” said the other, “if you ask me to look under the bed just one more time I will shoot you in your stupid face.”
Something in the dead body popped softly, bringing with it an even more rancid stench. A trickle of fluid leaked out, ran down Cooper’s forehead and onto the bridge of his nose. His left eye closed automatically as the foul liquid trickled across his eyelids.
Just go away just go away I don’t want to be eaten…
The elevator doors opened onto the eighteenth floor. Bosh and Ramierez, both still kneeling, leaned out and aimed their weapons down the hallway. Bosh’s weapon let out three snaps, click-click-click.
Klimas stepped out with his weapon pointed to the right, stock tight to his shoulder. Roth moved out at the same time, his weapon pointing left. Klimas fired his M4 once, another snapping click.
“Clear left,” Roth said.
“Clear right,” Klimas said. “Otto, with me.”
Clarence stepped out. One body lay down the hall to the right. A woman, face up, dead eyes staring at the ceiling.
Klimas spoke quietly, firmly. “Bosh, take point. Let’s move.”
The SEALs did just that, moving without a sound, moving faster than Clarence would have expected; he found himself jogging to keep up.
As they passed the woman, Clarence looked down: three red spots were spreading across her chest. A fourth bullet had blown off the top of her head, splattering her brains across the carpet in a rough oblong. A black .38 revolver lay near her right hand.
Clarence checked off the room numbers as he passed them by — 1804, 1805, 1806… Room 1812 would be down the hall, just past a left-hand turn. Coming from that direction, he heard the faint sound of men’s voices…
“The lights don’t work,” said the first voice. “All the bulbs is broke.”
“You can see fine enough,” said the second voice. “Man, look at that nasty body.”
“That is sooo gross,” said the first voice. “Move it so we can see if anything else is under that desk.”
“No, you move it,” said the second.
Cooper felt numb, like he wasn’t even there, and maybe he wasn’t… maybe this was all a fucked-up dream and he wasn’t hiding under an oozing, rancid, bloated body, maybe he wasn’t hiding from two men who would shove a signpost up his ass and slow-roast him over a bed of coals.
“Flip you for it,” said the first voice.
“Okay,” said the second. “Call it.”
Go away just go away just go away kill myself kill myself now Jesus please help me please
“Heads,” said the first voice.
“Asshole,” said the second. “Hold my gun.”
Cooper felt the dead body on top of him start to slide off. He raised Sofia’s pistol and squeezed the trigger.
Clarence heard the roar of four quick gunshots — a pistol, sounded like a .40-cal.
Klimas’s calm voice in the headset: “Go-go-go.”
Bosh and Roth sprinted around the corner.
Cooper was still on his back, still covered in dead-person sludge, pointing his pistol up at the bearded face of a very surprised man. Cooper had fired four times — and missed all four times. His hands shook so bad that the gun looked like some poorly made stop-action movie.
“That’s him.”
The words didn’t come from the bearded man, but from closer to the door. Cooper looked over — a man wearing a red-and-black knit Blackhawks hat cradled two weapons against his chest, a shotgun and a rifle. “Holy shit,” the man said. “That’s him.”
He fumbled with the weapons. He dropped the rifle, started to bring the shotgun up.
The rectangle of light from the hallway wavered as someone stepped into it.
Cooper heard a click-click-click: the man with the shotgun dropped. The bearded man turned to face the door. Click-click-click: he twitched, then fell to his back.
He lay side by side with Cooper. The man’s chest heaved. His eyes blinked in surprise, but only for a few seconds — then they stared out at nothing.
“Clear!” a voice called out.
Another answered the same.
Cooper looked at his hand, saw the empty pistol was still in it, then shook his hand to let it drop. To come through all this and then to be shot… what if it was too late, what if they were going to shoot him anyway, and—
“Cooper Mitchell?”
He looked up, saw a man in a gas mask, covered head to toe in a heavy chem suit. Through the eye lenses, Cooper saw the man inside was black.
“Cooper Mitchell,” the black man said again. “You’re Cooper Mitchell?”
Cooper nodded.
The man reached down a gloved hand. “I’m Agent Clarence Otto. We’re here to rescue you.”
Cooper couldn’t speak. His vision blurred as the tears started to flow. He reached out and let Agent Clarence Otto take his hand.
DR. FEELY’S BEDSIDE MANNER
Tim Feely had just finished setting up a centrifuge when the elevator opened. Two men stepped out: Clarence in his CBRN suit with combat webbing strapped to his chest and a pistol holster strapped to his thigh, and none other than the guest of honor himself — Cooper Mitchell.