Tortured Spirits (34 page)

“You've just dislocated it. Hang on. I'll pop it back in. Keep your arm straight.”

“Wait. Do you—?”

Before he could stop her, she popped his arm back into its socket. He gasped as pain shot through his upper body, then receded. He rotated his arm in its shoulder cup.

“All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Helman together again, but one little Latina did the trick.”

Jake panted. “It's so hot down here.”

Rising, Maria unfastened her hand radio from her belt and raised it to her mouth. “We got here in one piece, no thanks to my partner.”

“Copy that,” Jorge said.

Maria handed the flashlight to Jake. “Here. Give yourself a show.” Stepping out of her sneakers, she stripped off her shirt and shorts.

Jake watched her take the combat boots and camouflage uniform out of her backpack and put them on, then fasten her gun belt.

“These boots are big even with the stuffing in the toes. You gonna sit there admiring the view, or are you going to get dressed?”

Jake unclasped his backpack and took out his uniform and boots. “Cut me some slack. Technically, I'm crippled.” He stood and removed his sneakers, then peeled off his wet shirt.

Maria unbuckled his belt, opened his shorts, and pulled them down around his ankles. “I got no use for helplessness.” She aimed her flashlight at him, and he got dressed. “But I love a man in uniform.”

“Yeah? I haven't worn one in a long time.”

She shone the flashlight at the ceiling between them, and they adjusted each other's black berets. Then she set one dolly headfirst on the tracks and the other behind it. They armed themselves with gear from their packs, which they filled with their discarded clothing.

“Okay, five minutes to recuperate and get our heads together,” Maria said. “Sit down, soldier.”

They sat side by side on the second dolly. Jake held his flashlight, too.

“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” he said.

“Not in this heat. Besides, I quit again.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Maria sighed. “We're going to have to kill these guards.”

“I know.”

“You okay with that?”

“Not really. I kind of promised myself I'd only kill in self-defense from now on. Human beings, that is.”

“When we pull Santiago out of there, it will be self-defense.”

“Maybe.”

“I mean, we're doing some good, right? These berets are black, but we're really wearing white hats.”

“I don't know. I hope so. I'm telling myself these guards have black snake tattoos. If they worship Kalfu, their souls are already dark.”

“As in the Dark Realm?”

“Yeah.”

“So, do you see these souls?”

“Only when someone dies in front of me or when a zonbie's soul escapes from his head.”

“And you can tell if they're headed north or deep south?”

“That's the size of it.”

“How long have you had this gift?”

“Since the Cipher killed Sheryl.”

Maria paused. “You've got some serious baggage, you know that?”

“It's occurred to me.”

“That's okay. I can deal. Maybe.”

Jake had his doubts. “Time?”

Maria glanced at her watch. “Two-minute countdown.”

“Good luck.” Jake held out his hand.

Maria shook it. “You, too.” She kissed him, then stood. “Hey, do me a favor?”

“What's that?”

“If I get killed and you see my soul heading in the right direction, tell my mother, okay?”

Jake stood. “We're both going home.”

“I want you to promise me you'll do what I asked. It'll mean a lot to her.”

“I promise.”

“Okay, let's go kick some ass.” Maria climbed the ladder first, her machine gun over her shoulder and her flashlight in one hand.

Jake followed her, the climb difficult because he had only one hand.

Maria stopped climbing when she could go no farther and shone her flashlight on the access panel, three feet wide and three feet high. With his feet on the rung just below her, they stood shoulder to shoulder. She twisted the simple locks, and he stashed his flashlight in his belt to help her remove the panel.

“Sorry,” she said. “You're low man on the totem pole.”

Squeezing one edge of the panel, Jake descended the ladder, leaned the panel against the wall, and climbed the ladder again.

Maria inspected a second panel. “This one will only pop out on the inside.”

Jake pointed at a piece of glass the diameter of a penny set in the panel. “What's that?”

Maria climbed higher, even though she had to crouch
to fit in the shaft. She pressed one eye against the glass. “It's a peephole. I'm looking at a mop closet with all sorts of interesting things: paper towels, cleaning solutions, toilet paper …”

They twisted the locks.

“Try not to make any noise,” Jake said.

“No shit, gumshoe.”

They pushed on the panel, which came free. Jake clawed at the edge of the panel so only one corner struck the floor. Then he pushed it to the left, and Maria took over and slid it sideways. She climbed through the space and stepped over a slop bucket to make room for Jake, who followed. They faced the gray metal door, a naked bulb in the ceiling illuminating the closet.

Maria touched the back of Jake's hand with the back of her left hand. They looked at each other.

“Ready?” Jake said.

“Now or never.”

Jake opened the door halfway. Maria exited the closet and turned to her right, disappearing from his view. He stepped out, left the door open just a crack, and went left.

Do or die,
he thought.

The security station, a glass-walled office that looked out on the cellblock area, was twenty yards ahead. As Jake strode in that direction, he saw three men inside. Except for their military uniforms, they could have been three guys working at a car rental agency or in a mechanic shop. None of them noticed him.

Stopping at the door, Jake heard Maria's hollow-sounding
footsteps on the metal stairs behind him. Without turning around, he reached for the doorknob, which didn't budge. Conscious of the security camera looking down at him, he knocked on the door. The voices on the other side grew quiet. Keeping his face turned from the camera, he gave it a little wave. Then the door opened, and a thick-shouldered Hispanic man with a pencil-thin mustache stood before him. Unable to draw his Glock without alerting all three men, Jake kept his arms at his sides.

The soldier registered surprise, no doubt at seeing a Caucasian, then dropped his gaze to Jake's missing hand. Jake threw a punch at his nose, smashing it. The man gasped and staggered back inside. Jake took a canister the size of a shaving cream can from his belt. The other two soldiers rose from their seats. Jake bit down on the cap, pulling it off, and pressed the button on top. Then he tossed the canister into the middle of the room, where it spewed smoke.

Let's see how you guys like it.

One soldier ran for a console while the other reached for his gun. Jake drew his Glock, but the silencer caught in its holster. The first man reached the console; the second drew his pistol. Jake's heart beat faster as he freed his weapon.

Choices, choices.

He shot the soldier at the console in the ass, and the man fell back coughing gas. Jake stepped inside as the soldier with the gun fired a round into the doorway. He swiveled in the man's direction and fired. The recoil jerked his arm; he was accustomed to firing with two hands. The soldier's head snapped back, then forward, a hole in his forehead. His eyes
rolled in their sockets, and he flopped to the floor.

A moment later, a dark soul rose through the gas. The man Jake had punched got on his hands and knees, ready to stand, and Jake kicked him in the head, knocking him unconscious.

Jake removed the gas mask from his belt, fixed it over his head, and walked to the center of the room. Through the gas, he saw the soldier he'd shot in the ass continue to cough. Jake kicked him in the head, too, and the man slumped over. He scooped up the canister and pressed its button, killing the gas.

At the console, he scanned nine monitors. On one, an armed soldier rounded the cellblock corner on the third floor. On another, Maria climbed the metal stairs to the fourth level. And on another, a man was reading with his back to the camera in the only cell with a light on.

Andre Santiago.

Jake searched the buttons and toggle switches, but they were labeled in French, so he tried them all. With each movement, he glanced at the windows looking out on the cellblock. Lights went on and off. Fans started and stopped. The cellblock doors unlocked.

Bingo.

Gunfire erupted outside, creating a patch of spiderweb cracks in the bulletproof glass. Glancing at a monitor, Jake saw a soldier unleashing his machine gun at the control station.

Cat's out of the bag.

On the monitors, Jake watched Andre dive to the floor of his cell with his hands over his head; on the fourth level, Maria raised her machine gun to her shoulder and blasted away.

Bullets strafed the cement floor outside the station, and the soldier firing at Jake screamed and dropped his gun as he fell.

Good girl.

On the monitors, he saw the soldier on the fourth floor run around the corner.

Maria!

Jake bolted across the room and out the door, ripping off his gas mask just in time to witness the dark soul of the soldier Maria had shot rise from his corpse and fade. The cellblock's architecture prevented him from seeing Maria or the soldier advancing on her. He called Maria's name but doubted she could hear him over the machine gun fire. Backing up against the far wall with tall windows, he saw Maria stop firing. He didn't see the soldier she had just shot, but he glimpsed the flickering dark light of the man's soul.

Maria headed for Santiago's cell, but fresh machine gun fire pressed her back, bullets ricocheting off the bars around her. She opened the door to an empty cell. Jake spotted the soldier who was firing on a catwalk perpendicular to the cell block, level with Maria. He aimed his Glock but knew the man was too far away to hit with accuracy.

Then Jake heard footsteps behind him, coming from around the corner of the closet they had used to enter the prison. Turning, he saw two soldiers running in his direction twenty yards away. Without giving them the chance to get any closer, he dropped to one knee and opened fire. It took four shots to bring them down and two more to finish them off. Their souls rose in tandem.

The soldier on the catwalk continued to fire at Maria, who dropped to the floor for safety.

Jake ran to the corpse of the man Maria had shot outside the control room and seized his machine gun. Holding the gun over his stump, he fired a blast at the guard on the catwalk, strafing the wall below. The man spun in his direction. Jake fired again, covering a wide area in a haphazard manner. The man screamed and slumped against the wall.

Jake didn't wait to see the soldier's soul rise.
There's got to be one more around here somewhere,
he thought as he charged up the stairs, his boots clanging on metal. When he reached the third level, he saw the missing soldier duck around the far corner. Faced with going after the man or joining Maria, he continued upstairs.

On the fourth level, he made eye contact with Maria, who had trained her machine gun on him. He pointed at the far end of the platform, and she joined him. They stood still, listening. Footsteps echoed on the ground floor, and the last soldier bolted for the control station.

“I can't aim this thing!” Jake said. “Take him out before he sounds the alarm.”

Without hesitation, Maria raised the machine gun's stock to her shoulder and took aim. Jake stepped away and she fired. The gunfire cut across the soldier's back, toppling him.

She lowered the gun, a shocked look on her face. “I shot him in the back …”

“This isn't the street; it's a war. Come on.”

They ran across the platform to the illuminated cell.

Its occupant backed up against the wall beside his toilet. He appeared to be sixty, tall and slender, with tight gray hair and reading glasses.

Jake raised his machine gun in a nonthreatening manner. “Come with us, Mr. Santiago.”

The man's eyes widened. “Who
are
you?”

“Your wife sent us,” Maria said. “We're taking you to Miami.”

Andre rushed over to a small table and hefted a boxful of hardcover books.

“You can't bring those,” Jake said.

“These are my journals. Thirty years' worth of writings. I'm not going anywhere without them.”

“Whatever you say. Let's just get the hell out of here.”

“There's another prisoner below us.”

“Sorry. He's on his own.”

They hurried along the platform to the stairs.

“Are you mercenaries?” Andre said.

“No, just Americans who want to police the world,” Jake said.

“Thank you!”

They descended the stairs, and on the third level heard a voice call out, “Maria!”

Oh no,
Jake thought as all three of them turned their heads.

A man in priest's robes stood outside a cell, clinging to its door for support.

“Father Alejandro!” Maria ran over to the man.

“No, no, no, no,” Jake said.

Andre leaned close to him. “It looks like your partner
has broader concerns than you.”

Jake grunted. “Let's hope her compassion doesn't get us all killed. We've gone through a lot to get you out of here.”

“No doubt for great reward.”

Jake pressed his machine gun into Andre's hands. “Stay here.” He hurried along the platform as Maria draped one of the priest's arms around her shoulders.

What the hell?