No alarm sounded.
There was a lighted keypad on the wall, but the LED read DISARMED. Henry saw no other light, except the flicker of a television far down a hallway to their right. Gripping his shotgun like a lifeline, he started forward, but Sleepy caught his arm and held him back. The black man reached down to a credenza in the foyer and lifted an envelope from a pile of mail. Then he took a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and set the envelope alight.
Henry watched in bewilderment. Was Sleepy Johnston crazy, or was it that Henry’s addled brain couldn’t keep up? Johnston scanned the ceiling, then walked over to a smoke alarm and held the burning envelope directly beneath it. At last Henry understood. Even with the security system disarmed, the fire alarm should sound and summon the fire department.
He waited for an earsplitting Klaxon, but again none came. Sleepy stretched up higher, until the flame actually touched the smoke alarm.
Still nothing.
Henry went back to the keypad on the wall and punched the fire alarm and police buttons. When nothing happened, he pressed several buttons, trying to arm the system, but the readout didn’t change.
“Don’t make sense,” Sleepy whispered. “Something ain’t right.”
Why would Brody Royal disable his own alarm system? Henry wondered. Especially when he’s holding people prisoner downstairs? He shuffled quietly into the first darkened room off the hall, watching the light of the television flicker at the end of the long corridor.
A guest room. There. A telephone sat on the bedside table. A landline. Laying his shotgun on the bed, Henry dialed 911 with shaking hands, then lifted the receiver to his ear and waited. He heard neither a ring nor an answer.
“Hello?” he said, wondering if the drugs were playing tricks on him.
“Hey, Lee!” called a male voice from the direction of the TV’s glow. “What the hell you doing inside? Mr. Royal said not to leave your post unless we relieved you.”
Still confused by the silent telephone, Henry set down the receiver and considered trying to fake a response. Before he could try, Sleepy raised his finger to his lips, then pointed at the shotgun. Tensing for the shock of pain, Henry bent at the waist and picked up his father’s old Winchester.
CHAPTER 93
I COME AWAKE with my head pounding like a kettledrum, but a baritone counterpoint of voices penetrates the pain. My captors must be close. Keeping my eyes closed, I try to glean what I can of my surroundings. I’m lying on my side, on a cold concrete floor. The voices belong to Brody Royal and Randall Regan, and they’re coming from beyond my head, not my feet. Before I can make sense of their words, Caitlin’s higher-pitched voice asks a question. As the old man answers, a stunning realization hits me: my hands have been freed. The sticky residue of duct tape remains on my wrists, but the tape itself is gone. After a moment, I carefully open one eye and realize why. My left leg has been manacled to a ring bolt set in a cinder-block wall.
My chain appears to have about five feet of play in it. The slightest leg movement will make it rattle. As slowly as I can, I arch my neck back, searching for Caitlin. There. Fifteen feet away, she stands trussed to a steel pole like a witch condemned to burn at the stake. Her right cheek looks pink and swollen, as from a blow, and her eyes are bereft of hope.
Beyond my line of sight, Brody says something to Randall Regan in a low voice, but I hear nothing of the men from the van. With any luck, they’re gone. Hoping to further assess our situation before Royal or Regan realizes I’m awake, I tilt my head a little farther back, taking great care to keep my eyes barely open.
Brody Royal’s firing range appears to be a long tunnel cut deep into the earth. Five shooting lanes wide and forty yards long, it’s lined with cinder-block walls, floored with cement, and fitted with ceiling-mounted sprinkler heads every few yards. Steel support poles rise from the concrete floor to the basement ceiling, and it’s one of these to which Caitlin has been tied. Harsh fluorescent light floods the vast space, giving it the look of a chamber Reinhard Heydrich designed to torture Czech resistance fighters.
As I expected, long metal tracks line the ceiling, receding into the distance, where targets with human figures printed on them hang against a wall of bullet-pocked railroad ties. Three targets show Muslim terrorists with red crescents painted on their checked keffiyehs. Two more show the famous “running nigger” from the 1960s: a cartoonish silhouette of a black man with an Afro haircut, running in profile, with red target dots printed on his kneecaps, his buttocks, his chest, his mouth, and his temple.
Halfway to the far wall sit the two boxes brought by the professional guards, as though awaiting disposal. A few feet away from me sits an odd collection of equipment, so carefully laid out that it must have been brought here for us: a large chrome fire extinguisher; a thick roll of Visqueen; a red plastic bucket; and, strangest of all, what looks like some sort of man-portable welding system, with two gas cylinders on a frame, connected to a woven hose and a pipe. Beside this antique-looking apparatus I see the legs of Royal and Regan, who seem to be staring at Caitlin.
As I try to divine the purpose of the equipment, Regan takes a couple of steps toward me and kicks me savagely in the ribs. Air explodes from my throat as something cracks in my side.
“He’s awake now.”
“Then let’s find out where we stand and get this done,” Brody says. “Suit up, Randall.”