“Now what?” she asked.
“Shoot him in the leg.”
Fran squirted a few drops of liquid from the needle and plunged it into the sheriff’s thigh.
“Good. Now I need to see if I got them all. Undo the belt, slowly. Get ready to put it back on if I say so.”
Fran scooted closer, kneeling in the widening pool of red. It soaked into her pants, warming her cold legs.
“Ready … go!”
She unbuckled the belt and a small stream of blood squirted out of Streng’s stump, in time with his heartbeat. Warren pinched the artery closed and applied a clamp.
“Hand me the transfuser, Duncan, and pour more water on him.”
The water ran off mostly clear.
“I think we got all the bleeders. Find the vial marked potassium, Fran, and fill another syringe. That will help clot his blood. Duncan, go to where you found the water and bring me a white plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol.”
While Fran located the vial, Warren dabbed the wound with gauze pads, saturating one after another.
“Good, Duncan. Pour the whole bottle on his leg.”
“Mom uses this when I get cuts,” Duncan said. “It’s going to hurt.”
“It would hurt more if he got an infection and died. That’s why your mom uses it on you. Now let it flow, son.”
Duncan was right. When the liquid hit Streng’s leg his eyes popped open and he jackknifed into a sitting position, letting out a cry that made all three of them flinch. Warren gently pushed him back down and applied more gauze. Fran jabbed the second syringe into his leg and depressed the plunger.
“Duncan, give that transfuse a few more pumps. Frannie, squirt one of those tubes of antibiotic ointment on the stump, and then we can close him up.”
Fran reached for the ointment, then stopped herself.
“Don’t call me Frannie,” she said.
Warren waited.
“Mom called me Frannie, when I was growing up. You weren’t there. You aren’t allowed to call me that.”
“Okay. Fran, can you put on the ointment?”
Fran squeezed the contents onto Streng’s leg, and then Warren stitched a flap of skin closed over the stump, leaving the clamps sticking out. Then he packed on gauze and bandages. She watched him work, weaving the tape through the clamps, moving quickly but efficiently. When he finished he wiped his hands on his jeans and stood up.
“Can you pass me one of those plastic IV bags? The one that says saline on it?”
Fran fished around for the bag, while Warren pinched the needle out of his arm. When she located it, he attached the tube to the inlet valve and placed it on a shelf above Streng.
Warren cleared his throat. “There’s a bathroom around the corner and a kitchen with a laundry room. Both have sinks if you two want to get cleaned up. There are some extra shirts hanging next to the washing machine.”
Fran looked at her hands, her clothes, and found herself completely saturated with blood.
“I need you both back here pronto. We need to plan for when they get in.”
“How can they find us?” Duncan asked. “We’re hidden.”
“They’ll find us. They won’t stop until they do.”
“Why?”
“Because I have something they want.”
“What?”
Warren didn’t answer.
“It would be nice to know,” Fran said, rage bubbling up to the surface, “why these people have been trying to kill us, and why my husband had to die.”
Warren let out a slow breath.
“Tell me,” she ordered.
“No.”
“You owe me that.”
“I don’t owe anyone a goddamn thing.”
“Then why the hell did you let us in? If you don’t care about anything, why didn’t you just let us die?”
Warren stared at her for a moment and seemed to come to a decision.
“I was reckless when I was younger. Got into a lot of trouble. Raised some hell. I met your mother right before I shipped off to Vietnam. I’m sure she was a wonderful lady, but the truth is I’d only spent a few hours total with her, so I didn’t know her too well.”
“Stick to the story.”
“They say war changes people. It didn’t change me. I kept on doing what I always did. I sold drugs, supplies, stolen goods. I smuggled people, too. I had the connections. Wound up being in charge of the black market for the Kontum Province.”
Warren coughed. He bent down and grabbed the water jug, taking a long sip before he continued.
“Anything of value went through me. Not just contraband. Information, too. I passed the important stuff on to the higher-ups—I was a criminal, not a traitor. But near the end of my tour I got something unique. Something I couldn’t give to the higher-ups.”
Warren went to a shelf, opened an old shoe box. He reached inside and removed a blue plastic disk, big as a donut but less than an inch thick.
“A local came to me with this. An eight-millimeter film. Said he found it in a movie camera, near a South Vietnamese village that the enemy had bombed. Told me it was worth a lot. I watched it, realized what it was, and paid him. I was already rich, but this would make me more money than I could ever use.”
“So this is all about a stupid roll of film?” Fran couldn’t get her mind around it. “What’s on it?”
“You don’t want to know. It’s bad. Real bad.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Fran folded her arms. “Why not?”
“It will put you and Duncan in danger.”
She snorted. “How could we be in any more danger?”
“You could. Trust me.”
Fran tried a different tactic. “So why didn’t you sell it?”
“I tried. After the war ended, I shipped my stuff back here. Contacted the potential buyer. I was going to buy a big mansion in Beverly Hills.” Wiley shook his head. “I was a fool. Instead of millions, he sent some men over. I wouldn’t tell them where I hid the film. They tried to make me talk. They tried hard. I got lucky, managed to get away. I knew they’d come after me again, so I disappeared.”
“If they’re after the film, let’s give it to them,” Fran said. “Then they’ll leave us alone.”
Warren shook his head. “They won’t leave us alone. They’ll kill us whether they get the film or not.”
“How do you know?”
Warren met her gaze. “Because that’s what I’d do.”
Fran snatched the roll from him. She was tempted to throw it against the wall, as if destroying it would make all of this horror disappear. She raised it over her head, waited for Warren’s reaction.
He did nothing.
“Don’t you care if I destroy it?” Fran asked.
“No. I stopped caring about things a long time ago.”
“But isn’t it the reason you live like this?” Fran swept her hand across the room. “Underground, surrounded by traps?”
“I live like this,” Warren said in calm, even tones, “because this is what I deserve.”
Fran hadn’t expected that answer. She asked again, “What’s on this film, Warren?”
“We need to get cleaned up.” Warren headed for the door. “They’ll find us soon.”
“I want to see it.”
“No.”
Fran drilled her eyes into him.
“Show me the film. You can’t just tell me half the story.”
“Are you sure? If you watch it, you can’t unwatch it. I know.”
“Show me.”
“You don’t want to see it. Believe me.”
She thrust the film into his chest. “Show me, goddammit.”
Warren’s face seemed to sag.
Then he said, “Okay.”
The projector looked like a small oval suitcase with a metal snap on top. Wiley lifted it by the handle and set it on the hallway floor, then took off the left side of the shell, exposing the inner workings. He plugged it into the wall outlet. Then he opened up the round blue container and removed the film. Seeing it again made Wiley’s stomach clench.