"Flineus... I'm sorry. I didn't realize."
That was all the fisherman said, but it was enough.
Chapter Eighteen
Logan had passed through several successive stages of cell-pacing and bunk-slouching and was well into another bout of pacing when his cell door swung silently outward. He halted and found his gaze locked with that of Colonel Dan Collins.
A muscle jumped once in Collins' jaw, but his grip on the 9mm pistol in his hand was as steady as his gaze. Two anonymous MPs stood behind the colonel, armed with loaded and cocked M16A2s. Something about the way they wore their uniforms, the way they gripped their weapons, the way they held their eyes, told Logan those two weren't military personnel at all. They must belong to Mr. Silk Suit.
Logan's adrenal glands lurched once and kicked in full-tilt. He can't afford to let me live. And since Collins appeared to be his chief flunkie... The MPs didn't much look like they'd come for tea and crumpets, either. Feigning a nonchalance he was far from feeling, Logan drawled, "Evenin', Colonel. Or is it mornin'?"
To his astonishment, Collins gave him a strained smile. "Good evening, Captain," he allowed. "If you'll cooperate... ?" He gestured with his head to the waiting MPs.
Logan snorted. "Cuffs and hobbles, or a bullet in the brain?"
Something flickered deep in Collins' eyes, but Logan couldn't decide how to interpret that moment of intense emotion. Uneasily he waited for a response.
Collins replied softly, "Just cuffs," as though he were trying to convey something more than the simple meaning of those two words. A moment after that, the colonel added in a more normal tone, "Give him that parka."
Logan's brows rose. One MP carefully tossed him a thick, regulation parka.
"Goin' out, hunh?" he asked conversationally.
Nobody answered the obvious. Logan shrugged into the heavy jacket, zipped it up, and eyed Collins.
"Hood, too, I presume?"
"Unless you want frozen ears again."
Logan snorted. "You're all heart."
He fastened the hood, then—under the unwavering threat of Collins' Beretta Model 92-F and the first MP's rifle—he allowed the second MP to cuff him. The bar steel felt cold against his skin. The MP slid mittens over Logan's hands, then stepped out of the cell and retrieved his rifle.
Collins moved back. "Okay, McKee. Let's go."
"What? No last meal?" He spoke only half in jest. He was ravenous.
"Out." Collins' gaze remained perfectly steady this time. Logan felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his belly. Damn. Looks like I'll die in the snow after all.
He walked out of the cell, flanked by the MPs. Collins followed several paces behind. The colonel wasn't taking any chances. They took Logan to a truck which sat at idle in front of the stockade and shoved him toward the back end. Logan barely had time to take in a smallish military base, ablaze with electric lights under a frozen night sky, then he found himself locked into a lightless, cold compartment. Logan swore under his breath. They'd locked him in alone. Collins had seen him drop two guards in about four seconds and knew all too well what he could have managed in a dark truck, even cuffed, against armed men.
At least they'd given him a parka. Making him freeze on the way to his execution would just have added insult to injury. The truck lurched into motion. Logan slid off balance. He caught himself painfully on one elbow, then banged a shoulder against the wall when the axle dropped into a pothole that must have been the size of a 55-gallon steel drum. He swore into his scraggly beard and propped himself upright again, then scooted into one corner and braced himself with both feet.
It was hard to gauge time, but by the end of the tortuous ride, Logan was convinced they'd left behind any semblance of road and had climbed straight up one side of a mountain and plunged down the other. He'd have bruises on bruises, if they let him live long enough for bruises to form.
When the truck finally stopped, Logan drew a quick breath, then gained his feet and sank into a defensive crouch. He waited as footsteps crunched around toward the back. The doors creaked open. A halogen flashlight beam struck him square in the eyes.
"Nnh—" Reflexively he turned his face away from the painful glare.
"Get out." That was one of the MPs.
Logan couldn't make out how many of them were standing in the opening.
"You want me out?" He braced himself for the hot pain of gunshot wounds. "Come in and get me." Maybe they'd be stupid enough to try it, instead of just shooting him and hauling out the body... .
Another set of footsteps came around the side of the truck. Then, instead of the expected rifle shots, Collins' voice issued from the electric glare. An odd timbre colored the tone.
"Gentlemen, get him out please. Alive."
Logan blinked once. Collins wasn't that stupid... was he? The MPs—rifles carefully clutched in one hand—handed over the flashlight to Collins. Then, like obedient little puppies, they clambered up into the back of the truck. They'd taken only three steps toward him when, unbelievably, Collins switched off the light.
Utter blackness crashed across them.
What the—?
One of the MPs echoed him aloud.
Logan didn't even stop to think. He got the first one with a boot to the jaw. The man crumpled with an audible grunt. His inert body fell against the second man, who lurched off balance. Logan swung manacled arms in tandem and connected with someone's crotch. The man retched and folded up. Logan dropped him with a snap of the manacle bar across the back of his neck.
For a moment, Logan stood breathing softly in the darkness. Neither MP moved. He used his teeth to tug off mittens while he listened. Collins was unbelievably silent out there, but one helluva thunderstorm seemed to be brewing.
Logan blinked, distracted for a moment from the business at hand.
Thunderstorm?
In the middle of winter?
Collins' voice came from the side of the truck. Apparently, he hadn't moved so much as a toe during the brief fight.
"McKee? I know you took out those two fools."
Logan stooped cautiously, felt for and retrieved both rifles. They were loaded and ready to fire, with a round in each chamber. The soft snick of the magazines snapping back into place broke the brief silence.
Collins continued, still without moving. "That means you've got two rifles to my pistol. Think about it a minute, McKee. If I'd wanted you dead, I'd have shot you from out here and had those two toss your body into a ravine."
"What game are you playing, Collins?" Logan yelled. Then he stepped softly and swiftly three feet to one side, while bringing up the muzzle of the rifle to ready position, but Collins didn't shoot through the thin wall of the truck. Didn't, in fact, move at all.
"No games, McKee." The colonel's voice suddenly sounded weary beyond belief. "It's not your fault you stumbled into this mess. I'm risking lives that aren't mine to risk just to try and get you out of it again in one piece. And—maybe you can help."
Huh? "Oh, really? Is that why you and your doctor pal went through that little Mengele charade back on base? Piss off, Collins."
"Dammit, McKee! I'm trying to save your life! I know you aren't stupid! If I'd shown up the way you did on a top-secret post you were in charge of, what would you have done?"
He had a point there.
"We don't have much time, McKee. If you make a break for it from here, alone, Carreras will hunt you down and butcher you. But if you work with me, I'll do everything in my power to help you get safely clear. No more hospitals, no more lockups—and no Carreras."
Footsteps slowly approached the open tailgate, crunching softly in the snow. Logan stepped into an attack posture just inside the opening, ready to fire. A glow of light sprang up, revealing the resurrection of the flashlight. Collins stepped cautiously around the corner, pistol held harmlessly overhead. He'd pointed the flashlight at the sky, too. Collins' face inside the parka trim was waxy pale, full of stark blue shadows.