Move.
He had to get up there before the mist disappeared completely and someone spotted him. He had no allies in the sky, and the only ones on the platform probably had knives at their necks.
He moved up several more links, passing girders and metal handrails and mesh walkways beside him. Corrosion everywhere he looked. The salt air was an omnivore, eating everything it touched.
An agonizing groan froze Jimmy. It arose about ten feet above him. Then more gibberish violated his ears. Definitely not from the groaning guy.
Jimmy hated the sound of Arabic. He didn’t feel that way about Spanish or French, the two languages other than English that were spoken in the Gulf. But Arabic made his ears curl. Yeah, he knew there were millions of right-thinking Arabs who were great people, and had met a few who spoke English, but unfortunately he wasn’t dealing with the great mass of nice ones. He figured he’d be coming face to face with the most blood-thirsty killers he’d ever heard of, and the sound of their voices made him want to start shooting.
The groaner grew silent. Jimmy had little doubt about the language that man had been speaking: agony.
What the hell are they doing to him?
Jimmy looked up to see if he could get any kind of visual. Nothing. He took little solace in having his gun ready; firing it would be an act of desperation, for it would alert everyone. It wasn’t like that Saturday night special, which had sounded like a cap gun, and he was drawing ever closer to the ISIS brigade that could hear it.
He did spy overhanging walkways and ledges that would make murdering him a challenge. Unless they also come at you from below.
But he moved as quietly as he could on his bare feet — heavily callused from beach life — and hoisted himself up onto the next link. It was right below a recessed area that was painted red, which he realized must be where the groaner was feeling so much pain. He had no idea what purpose that area usually served. A lookout, maybe?
Should have paid a little more attention. And partied a whole lot less on his three-week stint.
A damn seagull landed on the link above him and squawked. Christ, they were loud. He saw others gliding around the rig, guessing the roughnecks fed them when they got bored.
The gull squawked again. The Arabic speaker shouted at it and lunged toward its perch right above Jimmy. He caught a glimpse of another bearded man long enough to know the guy hadn’t looked down, which saved Jimmy’s life — for the time being.
The gull flew off, leaving a fresh deposit that dripped down the link. Jimmy moved up, careful where he held on, stopping when he was just below the overhanging ledge; the chain continued straight up to the left of it.
He peered over the four-foot section of red-painted steel. A hulking man was facing the lone surviving oil worker, other than the chief engineer, whom Jimmy could only hope remained alive. The roughneck had a grease stain on his face, and was gagged so hard his cheeks had whitened from loss of blood. His eyes betrayed his pain and terror. So did the muffled groans still rising from him. Then Jimmy saw why: ISIS’s finest was cutting off a six-inch strip of skin from the man’s knee. It looked like he was peeling him alive: The roughneck’s entire calf and shin had been stripped and glowed bright red with fresh blood.
Jimmy wanted to shoot the torturer, but couldn’t. Not if he wanted to live long enough to actually get off the platform.
Instead, Jimmy slipped the gun into his belt and drew the long knife. He’d have to rise up slowly, scurry across the four feet of steel ledge, and drive the blade into the bastard’s back. First, he looked at the pale sun to make sure it wouldn’t throw telltale shadows from him.
Not a problem, thanks to the dim light.
Then Jimmy checked his footing, glad that he did: His left foot was half an inch from the gull’s greasy waste, which could have given him a noisy slip.
He drew a long steady breath, which was interrupted by the whup-whup-whup of a helicopter.
Using the noise for cover, he lifted himself up as the knife-wielding man gazed at the sky. Jimmy hurled himself across the ledge as the man glanced back and spotted him. But Jimmy drove the blade into his back, shocked at the sudden resistance to such a sharp steel point. A bone. He twisted the blade in the next instant, plunging it past whatever hard matter had brought it to a halt — maybe spine — leaving the knife buried to the haft.
Not a scream or moan of protest from the bearded man, who pitched forward onto his victim. The roughneck’s eyes looked right at Jimmy.
“Shush,” Jimmy whispered, though the gagged man could scarcely speak.
Jimmy dragged the dying man off the oil worker and grabbed the knife that had been used to peel the roughneck’s skin. Then he cut off the prisoner’s gag and sliced through plastic cuffs binding his ankles and wrists.
“Man, you saved my life,” the roughneck said softly. “He was skinning me alive. Who are you?”
Jimmy was about to say “A boat racer,” when the man recognized him.
“I saw you on TV, and in a great video. I can’t believe it. Tit Fucker just saved me. That’s so cool. But, hey, don’t get too close, okay?”
The heat woke Emma up, sun streaming through the windows of her Fusion. Last night she’d locked the doors and reclined the front seat after parking near the Planned Parenthood clinic. She’d recognized it from news reports about the protests at the facility.
She sat up as a woman unlocked the clinic’s front door. Adjusting the rear-view mirror, Em put on lipstick and brushed out her hair. Still unhappy with her rumpled appearance, she surrendered to urgency and climbed out of the car, knowing she looked half-baked, like some of her stoner friends at school.
Emma hurried across the street, glad nobody was outside the clinic wielding those graphic posters.
A nurse greeted her from behind a counter. Emma told her why she was there. The woman handed her a clipboard with a two-page form. “You understand that we’ll need to confirm the pregnancy first, but for now it would be good to answer those questions.”
After complying, Em looked up, realizing she was still the only person in the reception area.
The nurse returned, took the paperwork, and led her to a room with a small table and four chairs. Not an examining room, as Em had expected. Neither had she been asked to provide a urine sample. The nurse looked up from the form.
“I see that you’re seventeen. Is that correct?”
Emma nodded, taking a seat. The nurse stood in the doorway.
“In Maryland, we like to have at least one parent who’s aware of a minor’s decision before we perform the procedure. They don’t have to approve, but we like to know that one of them knows what you’re doing.”
“You said Maryland likes that. You didn’t say it was required.”
The nurse nodded. “That’s correct. There are exceptions. If the physician believes that you’re mature enough you may have the procedure without parental notification.”
“I’m really mature,” Emma said. “I don’t want to bother my mother with this. She’s recovering from a wound from a hand grenade last week.”
The nurse’s eyes widened with recognition. “Was that your mom who almost got killed in Bethesda?”
“Yes,” Emma replied, eyes flooding at once. She tried to stem her tears — not very mature to start bawling — but couldn’t stop. “She doesn’t need to be dealing with this right now. She’s in a lot of pain.” Which was true, damn it.
“What about the person who got you pregnant? Does he know?”