In the adjoining room, the conversation droned on in terminology Bane didn’t understand.
He felt himself grow calm. His thinking became more precise. The surgery might turn out to be a blessing in one way: he couldn’t have asked for a better distraction to allow him free run of COBRA’s highest security areas. He might even be able to confront Chilgers on his own terms or perhaps find the center of Vortex and destroy it without so much as seeing the colonel. Yes …
Something in his mind balked, pulled back. He couldn’t risk sacrificing Davey to the emotionless men in the next room. There had to be a way to save the boy and destroy Vortex. Davey was as important to him as the world, and without one the other could not exist in his head. Again Bane’s mind roared ahead, impelling him to reach for a set of green surgical garb. He stripped off the chauffeur’s black suit and climbed into the greens, stuffing the discarded clothes into a pop-up wastebasket. He tied a lime cap over his head and tightened the surgical mask behind his ears. Inspecting himself in the mirror over the sink, he found that his face was virtually obscured. As a final touch he strapped the.45 to his calf with white adhesive tape. No place to store the extra clips, though. Twelve shots were all he was going to get.
His plan was simple: find the boy and move him to another room; a closet, a linen shed — anything. With luck, COBRA would be thrown into an atypical state of confusion and disarray which would allow him even more freedom of movement. A little more luck and the surgery would be delayed long enough for Bane to finish his business with Chilgers and then rescue Davey when the King’s plastic explosives provided the final diversion.
Bane stepped back into the corridor sure of his stride and purpose. His next task was to find Davey’s room or everything else would be superfluous. Asking someone would raise too many eyebrows and suspicions. Attention would be drawn to him and that he could afford least of all. He decided to use the process of elimination, first crossing off the entire corridor he had bypassed in favor of the one that had led him here. Yes, this was the biological experimentation wing of this complex where sensitive weapons of the gaseous or liquid variety were developed. If major surgery was to be performed, this section was already equipped for it. It made sense to Bane that Davey was very close by — but where?
Davey’s eyes twitched in his sleep. In the dream he’d seen Josh very near and strained to reach out to him.
Josh, I’m here! Help me! I’m here!
Bane felt himself being pulled down the corridor toward the last room on the right. His heart was pounding as he opened the door without hesitation to find two armed COBRA security men and one startled green-garbed doctor, the anesthesiologist obviously, staring at him from their positions over a bed. The security men had their hands on their guns. The anesthesiologist held a straight razor.
“Is he stable?” Bane asked, mask down, not bothering to regard anyone but the doctor as he strode forward into the room closing the door behind him.
The doctor moved the razor away from Davey’s head. The boy’s shaggy curls had already been snipped neatly off, exposing his forehead and ears. The razor would finish the job.
“Vitals are strong,” the doctor replied, eyeing him cautiously.
“Sedation?” Bane asked, grabbing the offensive.
“I was about to administer the final i.v. dose as soon as I finished the shaving,” the doctor responded more easily.
Since the surgical team was apparently composed of strangers, Bane knew the anesthesiologist had no reason to challenge his presence in the room.
Bane moved directly to Davey’s bedside and glanced at his closed eyes. “He’s looking good.”
“I’ve maintained sedation as low as possible to keep him strong.”
“Excellent,” Bane complimented.
The anesthesiologist looked away, was moving the razor back toward Davey’s head when Bane acted, ramming his elbow into the doctor’s solar plexus and then up against the underside of his chin, in the same instant smashing down hard on the arm holding the razor. It clanged to the floor. The first security guard was still fumbling for his pistol when Bane grabbed a syringe from a tray near Davey’s bed and jabbed it right into his windpipe, pressing the plunger. The man’s eyeballs bulged as his hands groped for the needle, finding it only after consciousness had been stripped from him with death soon to follow.
The second guard wasted no time going for his gun. He went for Bane instead. Bane felt a set of powerful arms wrap about his head and neck in a Green Beret hold that brought sure, quick death. Bane twisted sideways and kept the second guard moving, stopping his grasp from becoming firm. The guard’s timing was thrown off and he toppled headlong over Bane’s shoulder, crashing hard against the floor yet lunging, meanwhile, toward the panic button at the bedside, and thereby exposing his entire neck at a strange angle. Bane reached his head before he reached the button. Bane threw all of his force into the blow, jamming the second guard’s head down so his throat mashed against the bed frame’s lowest railing. Bane felt the cartilage crack and give way, and then the neck went totally limp and became puttylike in his hands. He rolled the man over and glanced into a pair of eyes that would never close again.
Bane pulled himself to his feet, using the handrail for support, and found his eyes meeting Davey’s which had suddenly opened full and sure. They widened briefly, looking behind Bane’s shoulder, when something crashed into the back of Bane’s skull.
There were two more blasts to the back of his head before he felt himself slipping toward the floor. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the anesthesiologist he had neglected to finish off sweeping something from the tile. Bane realized it was the razor in time to deflect the first blow and redirect the second so that it whipped across the doctor’s throat, splitting it in two. The man’s fingers clawed the air as he crumbled backward, making a gagging sound.
Bane rose again to face Davey. The boy’s eyes struggled to stay open, fighting off the sedation Bane figured had been employed to neutralize his power. He found Davey’s hand and squeezed it.
“Can you hear me?”
The boy managed the semblance of a nod.
“I’m going to get you out of here. Just hang on.”
The boy nodded again, this time forming the shadow of a grateful smile with his lips.
Bane went to work. First the three bodies had to be disposed of, hidden for the time being, starting with the anesthesiologist’s because the blood from the slash in his throat was just reaching the floor. Bane dragged him by the shoulders into the bathroom and managed to stuff one of the guards in there as well. The second guard he jammed into the room’s only closet. That they would be discovered after it became known the boy was missing was inevitable. Chilgers would then know beyond any doubt that COBRA had been infiltrated. For now, though, Bane needed to steal all the time he could. The hope of avoiding violence was gone, so Bane directed his thoughts toward the next step.
The problem at this point was to get Davey out of the room, to somewhere that would serve as a hiding place while Bane completed his other appointed task. Then he would return and collect the boy, timing his escape to coincide with the King’s explosive diversion and the confusion that resulted. Wasting no time, Bane unhitched the bed railings and let the wings down, pulling the dolly the anesthesiologist must have brought in up close to move Davey onto it. The boy’s eyes flashed a bit brighter. If only he could come round fully, if only he could use the power …
Bane realized he was looking at the boy as a potential weapon just as Chilgers must have, instead of the victim that he was. He shook off the lapse and squeezed the boy’s hand again, tighter as if to apologize for his thoughts.