Plague Ship (Oregon Files 5)

A constellation of bullet holes appeared in the metal wall of the building. He whirled, not realizing he’d already drawn his Kel-Tek. Two gunmen stood on either side of the door. He fired three covering shots, the range far beyond the gun’s capabilities. Neither man flinched.

Linc jumped past him, landing in the bottom of the crater they’d created. When his feet hit the stressed cement, a hole opened up beneath him and he vanished into the earth. His weight had been enough to cause the plug to give way.

As more and more concrete splintered and tumbled down a flight of stairs, Juan tossed himself into the darkened hole, noting that the breeze blowing up from the depths carried the cold stench of death.

CHAPTER 23

THE PUNCH SANK DEEP INTO MAX’S STOMACH, doubling him over as much as the ropes holding him to the chair would allow. Zelimir Kovac hadn’t used half of his tremendous strength, and Hanley felt as though his guts had been turned to jelly. He grunted at the pain, spraying saliva and blood from his ruined mouth.

It was the fourth consecutive body blow, and he hadn’t expected it. Blindfolded, he could only rely on his torturer’s natural rhythm to anticipate the blow, and so far Kovac’s hadn’t established one. His punches were as random as they were brutal. He’d been at it for ten minutes and hadn’t yet asked a single question.

The duct tape covering Max’s eyes was suddenly ripped away, taking with it some of his heavy brows. The sensation was like having acid splashed on his face, and he couldn’t contain the yowl that burst from his lips.

He looked around, blinking through the gush of tears. The room was bare and antiseptic, with white cinder-block walls and a concrete floor. Ominously, there was a drain in the floor at Max’s feet and a water spigot with a length of hose coiled on a peg next to the metal door. The door was open, and beyond, Max could see the hallway had the same block walls and shabby white paint.

Kovac stood over Max, wearing suit trousers and a sleeveless undershirt. The Serb’s sweat and Max’s blood stained the shirt’s cotton. A pair of guards in matching jumpsuits leaned against the wall, their faces stony. Kovac thrust a hand toward one of the guards, and the man handed him a sheaf of papers.

“According to your son,” Kovac began, “your name is Max Hanley, and you are part of the merchant marine, a ship’s engineer. Is this correct?”

“Go to hell,” Max said, in a low, menacing tone.

Kovac squeezed a nerve bundle at the base of Max’s neck, sending torrents of pain lancing to every part of his body. He kept up the pressure, squeezing even harder, until Max was literally panting. “Is that information correct?”

“Yes, damnit,” Max said through clenched teeth.

Kovac released his grip and slammed his fist into Max’s jaw hard enough to twist his head. “That’s for lying. You had a transdermal transponder embedded in your leg. That isn’t common for the merchant marines.”

“The company I hired to get Kyle back,” Max mumbled, wishing more than anything to be able to massage some feeling into his face where it had gone numb. “They implanted it as part of their security.”

Kovac punched Max in the face again, loosening a tooth. “Nice try, but the scar was at least six months old.”

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It was a good guess. Hux had implanted his new one seven months ago.

“It’s not—I swear it,” Max lied. “That’s how I heal, fast and ugly. Look at my hands.”

Kovac glanced down. Hanley’s hands were a patchwork of old crisscrossed scars. It meant nothing to him. He leaned in so his face was inches from Max’s. “I have inflicted more scars in my life than a surgeon and know how people heal. That implant is six or more months old. Tell me who are you and why have you such a device?”

Max’s response was to slam the crown of his balding head into Kovac’s nose. The restraints binding him to the chair prevented him from breaking the bone, but he was satisfied with the jet of blood that flew from one nostril until the Serb staunched it with his fingers.

The look Kovac shot Hanley was one of pure animal rage. Max had known the strike was going to earn him the beating of his life, but, as Kovac glared, smears of blood like war paint on his face, Max felt certain he had gone too far.

The blows came in a flurry. There was no pattern, no aim. It was an explosive reaction, the instinct of the primeval hindbrain toward a perceived threat. Max took shots to the face, chest, stomach, shoulders, and groin in a rain of punches and kicks that seemed inexhaustible. The strikes came so fast, he felt certain more than one person was hitting him, but, as his eyes rolled back so that only the whites showed, he could tell the punishment was being meted out by Kovac alone.

Two full minutes passed after Max had slumped over in his chair, his face a pulped mass, until one of the guards finally stepped in to restrain the Serb butcher. Kovac turned his murderous gaze at the interruption and the guard hastily backed away, but the distraction was enough to cool his rage.

He looked contemptuously at Hanley’s unconscious form, his chest heaving with exertion and adrenaline. Kovac snapped his wrists, making the taxed joints pop audibly and sending droplets of their mingled blood to the floor. Reaching over, he pushed up Max’s right eyelid. All that showed was a veined white orb.

Kovac turned to the guards. “Come back and check on him in a couple of hours. If he doesn’t break next time, we will have his son flown here from Corinth and see how much of a beating he can watch the kid take before he tells us what we want to know.”

He strode out the open door. The two guards waited a moment and then followed, closing the heavy door behind them. They never looked back or felt movement in the room, because it was the last thing they would have expected.

Watching them leave through nearly closed eyes, Max was in motion the instant their backs turned. All throughout the terrible pounding, he had worked his body back and forth in the chair to loosen the ropes. Kovac’s fury had blinded him to this, and the guards had assumed Hanley’s jerky movements were in response to the blows. But Max’s actions had been cold and deliberate.

He bent over and grabbed one of the pieces of paper Kovac had tossed aside when Max had hit his nose. Shuffling with the metal chair strapped to his back, he lunged toward the door. He had one shot at this, because, even if he survived another beating, he would tell them whatever they needed to know to protect Kyle no matter the consequences.

His aim was perfect. The piece of paper slipped between the door and the jamb the instant before the lock engaged, preventing the bolt from sliding home.