“A silly mistake, little bitch. Garland had to play by the rules unless you changed them, and now you have. If you don’t listen to the rules, why should Garland? He shouldn’t!”
Sabrina kept her eyes squeezed shut. Maybe if she just stayed like this, eyes closed and body limp, he would grow tired and leave. Like playing dead during a grizzly bear mauling.
“Little bitch? Wake up, little bitch.”
It was hard to keep her body limp and her breathing shallow, though, because pain was an issue. Her head ached from his punch, but her shoulder joints held the worst pain, the tendons stretched and screaming. There was tension around her wrists too. He’d bound her against something that held her in the air. Gravity was her enemy, making the pain worse by the second, and she was desperate to lessen the pressure on her wrists and shoulders.
But then he’ll know. Just stay like you are, and he’ll get tired, and then-
When he slapped her, she gasped and opened her eyes despite herself. She saw him then, directly in front of her, his mouth twisted into a grin, his eyes hungry.
“Good morning, little bitch! I thought you were awake. You’ve been trying to hide from Garland, haven’t you?”
Sabrina gasped with pain and began to scramble with her heels, searching for any way to reduce the pressure in her shoulders. She finally found purchase, but it was soft and yielding, and it wasn’t until she’d pushed high enough to alleviate the pain that she looked down to see what her situation was.
He had overturned a bed, and it was resting on an angle against the wall and Sabrina’s arms were tied above it, ropes running from her wrists up to the exposed wall studs high above her. She was upstairs in the cabin, it seemed. There were lights and radios and electronics scattered all around, along with rows of cots, five or six at least. There was a window up here, and it wasn’t covered-daylight streamed in, and she could see down to the fence.
Garland Webb followed her gaze and shook his head.
“Don’t waste your hope on her. She is miles from help, and two men are right behind her. She will be back soon, and she will be punished too. Those are the rules. I’m only allowed to punish those who break them.”
He smiled.
“You broke them.”
He reached out and touched Sabrina’s chin with his index finger, laughed when she recoiled, and then traced a line down her throat and chest, between her breasts and down her stomach. She tried to kick him but missed and succeeded only in knocking the upended bed down farther so that she fell and the ropes sent waves of pain through her arms and shoulders. She screamed and Garland Webb laughed as he caught her legs easily, unbothered by her kicks, and stepped between them, his face almost level with her own.
“Fighters are good,” he said. “Fighters are better.”
She turned her head in disgust, and when she did she saw the staircase to her right, and saw Violet standing there, halfway up, hidden in the shadows. For an instant, they locked eyes, and then Violet looked away.
“No!” Sabrina shouted. “Help me!”
Violet didn’t look up, but Garland turned and saw her.
“Get out of here.”
Violet didn’t move. Her head was still down, and Sabrina could see that her lips were moving, but no words were coming. It was as if she were whispering to herself. No-chanting. Sabrina could hear the faint sounds now.
Garland Webb released Sabrina’s legs and stepped toward the stairs, saying, “I should have left you chained, you stupid slut.” He had taken only two steps when a radio in the room crackled to life.
“We have armed visitors at Wardenclyffe,” a male voice said.
Webb pulled up short, pivoted his head toward the window, and stared out. Sabrina managed to get her heels braced on the bed frame again, leaning her head back with relief when the screaming tension in her shoulders and wrists ebbed.
Webb crossed the room to a long table, picked up a radio, and walked to the window. He’d put the radio to his lips but hadn’t spoken when another voice came on, and this one Sabrina recognized-Eli Pate.
“Come again?”
“Two armed visitors at Wardenclyffe. Don’t look like police. But the woman is running toward them.”
“Where is Garland?”
Webb pressed a button on the side of the radio. “Right here. With the other one. Baldwin. She is secured.”
Violet’s head was bobbing gently, the soft chants still coming from her barely moving lips, her eyes closed. For a few seconds that was the only sound, and then Pate spoke again.
“Can you take the others out?”
The unknown male voice said, “Affirmative.”
“Then do so.”
“Ten-four.”
Garland Webb said, “I’m coming down,” and then clipped the radio to his belt. He turned from the window to face Sabrina. “I’ll be back, little bitch. We’ll have our time together.”
He moved across the room to the top of the stairs. Violet was still chanting, eyes still closed.
“Get out of my way,” Webb said, starting down the steps.
Violet opened her eyes, lifted a pistol, and pulled the trigger.
There was a soft pop, a hiss of air, and then a hideous blend of gasp and scream as Garland Webb reached for his throat and the dart that was embedded just below his Adam’s apple.
63
When he saw Lynn, Mark dropped the rifle and picked up the.38. His uncle watched with curiosity.
“You know her?”
“Yes. She’s the one I came here with, the one looking for Pate.”
Larry reached out and grabbed Mark’s arm as he turned to run. “Don’t set off like a damned fool again.”
“There are men right behind her!”
“Thank the good Lord for a scoped rifle, then,” Larry said.
“We aren’t shooting anybody unless we have to.”
“You didn’t have that problem earlier today.” Larry picked up the rifle and leaned forward, burrowing himself into the snow and assuming a sniper’s position on his belly. “Might as well back them off a touch, wouldn’t you say?”
Mark looked at him and then up the slope helplessly. He wasn’t going to cover the ground to Lynn uphill faster than those two would do it going downhill, but he didn’t want to start a firefight either. Not as exposed as they were here.
“Markus, they are closing on her fast,” Larry said.
“Back them off, then.”
Larry went silent and enough seconds passed that Mark thought he hadn’t heard the instruction. Then his uncle squeezed off four shots in succession, fluid as a firing machine, racking the bolt and squeezing the trigger, racking the bolt and squeezing the trigger, no change at all in his expression or posture.
“Well,” he said, “they didn’t care for that much.”
“You hit them?”
“Of course not; I wasn’t trying to hit them. They both dropped and went for cover. I can see one of them. The other one made it down in the rocks, out of sight.”
“Where is Lynn?”
“She stopped running too. She’s hiding in that gulch. I wish she’d been smart enough to keep running. This was buying her good lead time.”
“She probably thinks any shooting is hostile fire.” Mark looked at the gulch, two hundred yards away over open hillside. It was a ribbon of shadow in the gathering dusk. Once he got there, he’d feel safe enough.
But he had to get there.
“Shit,” Larry said. “They’ve got radios. That means they’ve got friends.”
“I’m going for her,” Mark said. “When I start running, put up some cover fire. Shoot to wound if you can. You don’t need a murder charge.”
Larry was feeding fresh cartridges into the rifle. “I’d say we’re past the point of worrying about our booking sheets.”
He was probably right.
Larry said, “When you get to her, head straight down the gulch instead of coming back across the hill. I can hold them off, and you’ll have better cover. You get to the bottom, where that stream is, just run like hell for the truck. I can keep them occupied long enough for you to make the truck.”