Hitman Damnation

TWENTY-THREE



The first thing I was aware of was that it was dark. Night.

The second thing was the rumbling, the vibration. I was in a moving vehicle, lying on a metal floor with my hands tied behind my back.

I peeked through slitted eyes. My head was splitting with pain. I was careful not to move, though. If I was being watched, I wanted my captors to think I was still unconscious.

It was a van. I was in the back of a van.

The back of my head felt like it’d been chopped into two pieces. Did I have a concussion? Even though I had genetic superiority over my captors, I wasn’t infallible. I felt nauseated, but I fought the urge to vomit.

My hands were tied—with what? Not rope. Not cuffs. Something thin and plastic but strong. Zip ties. Heavy-duty zip ties. Killers often used them to restrain their victims. Cheap and easy to find at the local hardware store. Even Birdie carried them.

Two men in the van. A driver and a passenger. The two guards from Ashton’s office. Where were they taking me? I must have been out for hours, since it was now night. How long had we been driving? How far away from Greenhill were we?

A flood of anxiety almost made me grunt aloud. But I held it in.

The pills. They caused this. I never would have fallen for such an obvious trap before … before last year.

Helen was right. I had to stop. They affected my brain after all. Made me slower. Made me dumber. I had to quit them. Throw them away. Go cold turkey.

But I’d worry about that later. I had to deal with the current situation first.

The van made a turn, and the feel of the road changed. The driver had exited a highway. I could see a little of the surroundings through the back window. Dark sky. Streetlights every now and then. We weren’t in a city, though.

I thought about Helen. She was on her way somewhere in an airplane with Wilkins. What was going on at Greenhill? Was the client Cromwell, as the Agency now suspected? Who ratted me out? Did Wilkins know?

The van slowed. We moved past a tall freestanding sign. I recognized the logo: A man’s white hair. The word CHARLIE’S beneath it. The message read: ANOTHER CHARLIE’S COMING SOON TO THIS LOCATION!

The passenger said something to the driver I couldn’t understand. The driver responded, “Is he still out?” I closed my eyes. I heard the passenger reply, “Looks like it. You sure you didn’t crack his skull?”

“What does it matter?” the driver said. “Dead is dead.”

The vehicle pulled to a stop. Both men got out of the van, went around to the back doors, and opened them. I stayed motionless.

“Hey, Mac! Start her up!” one of them shouted.

Some twenty or thirty feet away, I heard the sound of a vehicle rev up. Some kind of big industrial thing, like a semi truck.

“Sleeping Beauty’s still out.”

“Come on, let’s grab his legs.”

I felt their hands grip my ankles and pull. With my hands tied behind my back, I couldn’t do much but let them. I needed to assess the situation before I attempted anything.

They didn’t bother to grab my shoulders to carry me. My upper body fell to the ground, which was covered with gravel. Then they started to drag me by the legs, faceup. It wasn’t pleasant. The rocks and debris dug into my forearms and hands. I managed to peer out the slit of an open eye.

It was a construction site at a rest stop on an interstate highway. The foundation for the restaurant had already been laid, but nothing else had been built on top. It was only a big pit in the ground, maybe eight or ten feet deep, with utility pipes and stuff in it. The truck noise I heard was a concrete-mixer transport. The big drum was rotating. Its chute was aimed at the pit, ready to fill it with cement. A third guy was sitting in the driver’s seat. A couple of floodlights were trained on the area so they could see what they were doing. From the road, I’m sure, nothing appeared suspicious. Just looked like workers doing night construction.

They dropped my legs when I was at the edge of the foundation. Then one guy kicked my shoulders hard and I rolled off into the pit. I landed like a ton of bricks on the concrete floor. It took tremendous effort not to make a sound, even though it hurt—really hurt.

“Frank, I think he is dead,” I heard the driver say.

Frank called to the truck guy, “Okay, Mac, let her rip!”

The concrete mixer made a gurgling sound and started to sputter. Wet cement began to pour out of the drum, down the chute, and into the foundation.

* * *

They were going to bury me in concrete underneath a Charlie’s restaurant.

So how was I going to play it? If I got up now, which I could do, it would still take some time to get out of the restraints and climb up to ground level. By then the guards could simply shoot me. They still had their side-arms on their belts. Then there was the third guy, Mac. I didn’t know if he was armed too.

The best course of action was surprise. I just hoped my improvised plan would work.

The concrete dumped out fast. Already I felt the stuff inching up around my body. In seconds I’d be covered with the thick muck. I waited … waited … until exactly the right moment … when the cement was about to cover my face … and I took a deep, deep breath.

A minute later, I was completely covered. The wet concrete was heavy. They’d keep filling the foundation until the cement was level with the ground. How much time would it take? Could I hold my breath that long?

Concentrate …

I allowed my mind to drift back. Back through the decades …

I was eight years old. At the asylum. Training. Learning how to be a killer.

Dr. Ort-Meyer supervised my athletic exercises. He pushed me to extremes that no ordinary child of that age could endure. Sometimes he took me to a tall cliff and made me climb it. Other instances involved crawling through an artificial jungle environment complete with bugs and snakes. This time, it was winter and I was forced to drop into a hole in the ice that covered a pond on the asylum grounds. My task was to jump in at one end, swim under the ice to the other end, retrieve a baton that had been placed there before the surface froze, and then swim back and climb out of the hole. Holding my breath the entire time. The exercise would have taken an Olympic athlete four minutes, maybe more. A very small percentage of the human race could hold its breath for that amount of time.


I was only eight years old, and I was no Olympian.

I wore only swim trunks. It was probably around ten below zero Celsius outside. My skin was turning blue and I wasn’t even in the water yet.

Ort-Meyer held a stopwatch. “Take a deep breath,” he ordered. I did what I was told. “Ready … set … GO!”

I jumped into the frigid water. It felt as if dozens of needles assaulted my skin. I wanted to shout from the shock of the cold. But I didn’t. I kept my mouth closed. I kept the precious breath inside me. And I started to swim. Under the ice. Opening my eyes, I could see the whitish crusty ceiling above my head. What was the length of the pond? Maybe forty yards? Not too bad. Not even half the size of an American football field.

But I had never done it before. I was frightened. My lungs already hurt, probably more from the punishment my heart was taking by subjecting my body to such dangerous temperatures than from any lack of air.

Still, I swam. I swam as if my life depended on it, which it did. If I failed the task, it was unlikely that Ort-Meyer would make any attempt to save me. He would chalk it up to another experiment that didn’t quite measure up. He’d go back to the drawing board and try a different cloning recipe.

Before I knew it, I had reached the other side. The baton stuck out of a holder embedded in the rock, just under the ice surface. I grabbed it and kicked off the side of the pond, back toward the hole and to safety.


I lost myself in the memory of the event. It helped me hold my breath as the cement continued to pour on top of me. Concrete, ice—what was the difference?

There was a moment before I reached the hole when I panicked. I remembered it clearly. I didn’t particularly want to relive that part of the exercise, because it was very unpleasant at the time. I thought I had veered off course and couldn’t see the hole on the other side. There I was, back in my eight-year-old body, as I frantically searched for the proper route. I wanted to skip that part of the film in my head, edit it right out, and jump to the part where I finally found the hole and climbed out to gulp some precious air. But my reminiscence wouldn’t censor that scene. I found myself trapped under the ice, terrified that I was about to drown. And I suddenly felt the familiar anxiety that had been plaguing me since Nepal.

As my younger self struggled in that dark, glacial netherworld, I beat on the ice above me, hoping I could break it.

That was impossible.

And then I saw him. Swimming toward me.

This wasn’t how it happened! He wasn’t there then! My memory was lying to me!

The shadow man. The faceless figure. Death. Swimming right at me. Reaching out. Ready to take me.

I tried to swim away, but my hands were tied behind my back and I was no longer in water. I was submerged in thick, wet cement, and it was more difficult to maneuver in that substance than in quicksand.

The dark black arms embraced me. They were strong and viselike. I struggled against him, but I couldn’t move. I desperately wanted to see his face, though, so I turned my head to look.

Nothing there. Just a blank spot where eyes, nose, and a mouth should be.

Death had me.

No!

I was aware that I was no longer lying on my side on the foundation floor. I was squatting. I didn’t recall moving into that position, but I had done it. Summoning every ounce of strength in my legs, I pushed off and upward. Death’s arms released me. I was free! But it was like swimming through molasses. The surface was close, yet so very far away. With my wrists bound, it was a near hopeless dream.

But I kicked my feet like a machine and slowly ascended, inches at a time.

I sensed I was nearing the top.

Harder! I had to kick harder!

And then … at last … my head broke the surface and I gasped the lovely, valuable oxygen. A surge of power coursed through my veins as I filled my lungs with the warmth of …

Life.


I climbed out of the pool of wet concrete and stood at the edge. I was covered in the stuff. I must have looked like a monster. I was a walking gray thing.

First—I had to get out of the restraints. As I’d told Birdie back in Chicago, they’re breakable if you know how. They had a weakness, no matter if you were tied in front or back. In this case, since my hands were behind me, I simply had to bend forward at the waist so that my tailbone jutted out a bit. Then, I made sure the little cubelike “lock” on the tie was positioned in the center, between my wrists, on the inside of my arms. I had to rub my tied hands against the back of my belt a few times in order to slide the lock around to the appropriate spot. Then, even though it was somewhat awkward, I raised my arms behind me as far as they would go—and I slammed them down against my tailbone. The square lock was breakable if the right amount of force was applied in just the right place.

I was successful. My hands were free.

I then wiped the mucky concrete off my eyes so I could see, but otherwise the stuff was caked on.

The van and cement truck were still there. The men were not in sight, but I heard them laughing on the other side of the truck. Probably having a smoke or a drink and celebrating. I trudged over to an area where stacks of lumber and bricks were covered by plastic tarps. I found a two-by-four the length of a baseball bat.

That would do.

I couldn’t move very quickly because of the goop all over me. It was already starting to settle and dry. Nevertheless, I plodded over to the truck and listened.

“Pass me that bottle.”

“Who was this guy we buried, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Ashton just told us to do the job and not to tell anyone, especially not Reverend Wilkins.”

“What time did the Colonel leave?”

“Seven, I think. Won’t be back for a couple of days.”

“So we don’t have to be back till morning?”

“Let’s get out of here. I know a good titty bar in Alexandria.”

They were getting out of there, all right. Permanently.

I stepped out in front of them. I must have been an awful sight. One man screamed, and another yelled the F-word. I raised the two-by-four and brought it down hard on the guy called Frank, who had the sense and reflexes to go for his gun.

The sound of his skull cracking was very, very loud.

The guy they called Mac tried to bolt. I stuck my leg out and tripped him. By then I was already swinging the two-by-four at the third man. He tried to duck, but he wasn’t quick enough. The wooden club glanced off the top of his head but didn’t do much damage. Mac started to crawl away, but I slammed my boot on top of his back, pinning him down. At the same time, the face of the guy who’d ducked was even with my elbow, so I jabbed it into his nose. He yelped and fell back against the cement truck, giving me ample time to level the two-by-four and swing it at him as if his head were a curveball.

Finally, I directed my full attention to Mac, the truck driver. He didn’t seem to be a guard; he had no weapon. Just a worker assigned the wrong duty at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

That wasn’t an excuse.

I raised the club as if I were chopping wood. Brought it down. He stopped squirming soon enough.

With that task completed, I scanned the construction site for something else I needed and saw it near the piles of lumber. I clumped over to the hose, turned on the water, and set about washing away the concrete that covered my body and clothes. It took nearly ten minutes; in the end I was sopping wet but completely clean.

All the while, cars zoomed by on the expressway. There wasn’t much for them to see. The bodies were behind the truck and I probably looked like an ordinary construction worker. I figured I must be near Alexandria, since Tomato-Face had mentioned it.

I went back to the three dead men. One of them was the van driver, but I couldn’t remember which one, so I searched their pockets until I came up with the keys, and also took some money from a wallet. Then, one at a time, I picked them up in my arms and carried them over to the rapidly drying pool of concrete. I dropped them in. Plop, plop, plop. They sank to the bottom.

The side of the van bore the legend GREENHILL SECURITY. I’d have to take it where I wanted to go and then abandon the vehicle as soon as possible. I was still puzzled by the turn of events. How did Colonel Ashton know who I was? From what the guard said, it sounded like Wilkins wasn’t involved and didn’t know. Could I be sure? Was Helen aware of it?

I knew one thing, though. Well, two.

First—I had to find out where Wilkins, Helen, Ashton, and his party flew. I had a score to settle with the Colonel.

And second—I wasn’t going to take any more oxycodone.

I needed to be at my best.