The Camel Club (Camel Club 1)

coming. The heel of his foot hit the North Korean directly on the chin, knocking him back against the car. Hemingway stopped and looked at the blood on his arm, then turned his attention back to the man.

“This ain’t going to be pretty,” Reuben said.

Hemingway’s first strike killed the man. Stone could see this from where he was crouched. He had never seen a blow that hard thrown by a human being. It was more like the raw power of a grizzly bear.

And yet Hemingway did not let the North Korean fall. He held him up against the car and kept striking away, in the head, in the chest and in the abdomen. He was hitting him with such force and astonishing speed that when Hemingway finally let go and the man slumped to the ground, Stone and Reuben could see that the car door behind him had been caved in.

Hemingway stepped back and took a deep breath as he surveyed the three dead men. As he went to pick up his swords, Stone took out his pistol and drew a bead on the back of Hemingway’s head. Suddenly, Hemingway stiffened, stood straight and slowly turned in the direction of where Stone and Reuben were hidden.

He stared up at the window. Although he couldn’t possibly see them, it was clear that Hemingway was aware of their presence.

As Hemingway stood there, apparently waiting for the bullet to come, Stone lowered his gun. Hemingway waited a few seconds, and then, in a blink, he was gone.

Simpson ran as fast as she could but was hopelessly disoriented. She finally stopped and looked around. She was in a maze. “Alex?” she cried out.

“Jackie!”

She ran toward his voice.

“Jackie, they’re in here somewhere. Watch yourself.”

She instantly stopped and knelt down, listening. All she could hear at first was her breathing. Then the sounds of footsteps, stealthy footsteps. She backed down the corridor, away from them. She held her pistol up, ready to fire

“Jackie?”

“Down here,” she called out.

Alex stuck his head around the corner and saw her. He quickly joined her.

She looked at his filthy clothes. “What the hell happened to you?”

He rubbed at the muck. “Don’t ask. Just don’t ever say I lack patience, or I’ll deck you.” He gazed behind him. “Two guys blew past me coming in here. Any sign of them?”

She shook her head. “So how do we get out of here?”

“It’s as simple as checking the floor.”

“What?”

Alex didn’t answer. He walked down the corridor and stopped where it intersected with another. He got on his knees and looked at the floor. “Damn, how about that?”

Simpson hurried forward and joined him.

“See?” He was pointing at a small dot in a crevice in the floor that was barely visible.

“A red dot,” Simpson said. “What does that tell us?”

“Which way to turn.”

“How?”

“You must be a landlubber.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning sailors know that red means port and port means left.” He turned left down the corridor, and they walked along until they reached another intersection. There they found another dot. This one was green.

“Green means starboard and starboard means—”

“Right,” Simpson finished for him.

They made their way through the corridor this way and soon found themselves at the end.

“Okay, how did you know about the dots?” Simpson demanded.

“Oliver told me.”

“So he really was here,” Simpson said slowly.

Alex stared at her. “I never doubted it.” He looked up ahead at the door at the far end of the hall. “Oliver said we only had two rooms on this side. That means through that door—”

“Is the president.”

“And Hemingway,” Alex added grimly.

“He is a federal agent, Alex, which means he might be on our side.”

“Jackie, listen to me. This guy is a traitor, and he can probably kill you with his pinkie. If you get a chance to shoot him, take it.”

“Alex!”

“No bullshit, Jackie. Just do it. Now come on.”

While Alex and Simpson were dashing through the maze, Stone and Reuben stepped into a room that had a hanging cage, chains on the wall, gurneys and trays of surgical instruments and what looked like an electric chair.

Stone stared at the latter device and drew a sharp breath. “They called this the room of truth. They used it to break you. The truth was they broke everybody eventually, me included.” He pointed to the chair. “They used too much electricity on one man that I trained with, and his heart stopped. They told his family he went missing overseas during a mission. He’s probably buried on Murder Mountain.”

“We might be too,” Reuben pointed out glumly.

“Let’s get on to the next room,” Stone said. “This one always made me sick.”

They had just started toward the exit when the door they had come through burst open.

“Run!” Stone shouted, throwing gunfire at the North Korean who had swept into the room. He fired back, and Stone had to hurl himself behind the electric chair.

Gunfire erupted on all sides of the room. A minute later while Stone was reloading as fast as he could, he heard Reuben yell out, “I’m hit! Oliver, I’m hit.”

“Reuben,” called out Stone as two shots whizzed by his head. He returned fire and ducked down. A clattering sound came from the left as though someone had overturned a tray of instruments; then came more noises of things being tossed around. Stone made a quick decision. He pointed his pistol at the ceiling lights and shot them all out.

In the darkness Stone put on his night-vision goggles, his gaze peering desperately through the gauzy green world the goggles created.

Where was Reuben? Where was he? Finally, Stone saw him lying on the floor behind an overturned gurney, holding his side. There was no sign of the North Korean. Stone kept sweeping the room with his gaze, finally stopping on one corner. Here gurneys and other medical equipment had been hastily stacked, forming a wall. The person had to be behind there. And then Stone’s gaze went upward, and he saw what had to be done. He laid on his back with his knees bent. He rested his gun between his knees and then clamped them together, which held the gun motionless. He lined up his target, exhaled all the air from his lungs and relaxed his muscles fully. It was as though all his training on how to kill someone had come effortlessly back to him, right when he needed it. Should I thank God or Satan?

In daylight the shot would’ve been simple. Looking into a world of green haze and knowing you had only one chance made the task far more complex.

He squeezed the trigger. The chain holding the cage, which rested right above where the North Korean was hiding, was cut neatly in two. And the one-ton cage fell.

Stone continued to watch, his pistol ready. What he saw next slightly sickened him, even though it had been his intent. The blood flowed under the gurneys and started pooling a few inches in front of this barrier.

Stone rose and made his way over to the corner. He cautiously peered over the wall of gurneys. Only a hand was visible from under the fallen cage. The man hadn’t even had time to scream. In Stone’s old world this would have been labeled a “perfect kill.”

“Oliver!” Reuben called out.