“Who?”
Scotty smiled. “Guess it doesn’t matter if I tell you. The checks come from some very smart men with money. Old men who contribute heavily to the university where you were first studied.”
“The university?”
“Alumni, shall we say.”
“They think it’s in my blood?”
“They say it has to be, dude. Somewhere in your blood or your DNA. So they figure it’s something money can locate and copy, or at least secure the rights to.” Scotty leaned closer. His breath stank of the rot eating him from inside. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Why not just steal a sample and go to work on that? Why bleed you dry? So I asked the same question. Seems to me we could take some, let you eat and rest, then take some more, and even go on and on for months or years that way.”
“Uh-huh.”
Just let me stay alive long enough to figure a way out of here…
“But no, we’re supposed to get as much as we can over a few days, then punch your ticket and dispose of the body. In case you’re curious, it will be a state-of-the-art cremation. That is, we plan to burn your ass up with a frag and split.”
“Why kill me? Just to leave no evidence?”
“Monopoly, dude. Once we have enough healthy samples, taking your ass out leaves no way for anyone else to compete. Business is murder these days.”
Matt licked his lips. “Water. Please.”
Scotty snapped his fingers. The mercenary with the marijuana sighed, pinched out his joint, and got a small bottle of water. He tossed it to Scotty, who opened it and poured a taste into Matt’s mouth. “Go easy, partner. Wouldn’t want you to get sick. We’ll turn off the drip now, let you get some strength back.”
Matt managed to make his left hand crawl up to grab the bottle. He wanted to handle it himself. He took another sip. “You must feel really proud of yourself.”
Scotty blinked once, then looked away.
A hit, a palpable hit.
The mercenary got up, walked around the gurney, and stopped the blood flow. He put some grapes and orange slices on a paper plate and set it down on Matt’s legs. Something in Scotty’s weakened mind wandered, though, and instead of feeding Matt he began to absently snack on the grapes himself. He looked normal again, and then horrific. These dangerous men were rapidly being taken over by their own mindless appetites.
Matt swallowed some more water, choking a bit but keeping it down. He looked to his right, where the needle protruded, and his mind raced for some kind of answer. He was alone in a huge trailer parked out in the desert, guarded by mercenary soldiers recruited in the cause of evil. Everyone thought he’d left town. The rancher he’d visited was dead, and perhaps Matt would be blamed for the murder. As for any chance of rescue, no one even knew he was here. Only one thing was certain.
Matt was in deep, deep shit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sunday, 11:34 a.m.
He lost track of the number of times they woke him up to give him water, fruit and juice or to change the trickle of urine in the bedpan. As soon as he’d regained some of his strength, they’d start collecting blood again. Matt was light-headed all the time now, and his vision was blurring. The mercenaries looked horrific, their souls pocked with the unspoken evil of what they were doing. One with a shaved head never looked at him. One with thick red hair never stopped. The stoner never quit smoking. Their lack of sympathy and interest betrayed souls too far gone for any kind of recovery.
These were trained mercenaries, in great condition and still quite lethal, but the Dark Man had found a way to touch them. They ate Matt’s food on a whim, smoked dope, drank booze, and napped. When Matt was able to concentrate, he wondered if these men would even remember what they had done here. They seemed beyond caring.
And Matt didn’t have much longer to live.
The mercenaries rotated positions. Scotty was the only one with a smidgen of bedside manner. The others rarely spoke, except to grunt a request or use a four-letter word. One had the habit of constantly scratching his balls. They argued violently, exercised, cleaned their weapons endlessly, burped and farted, slept and snored. Sometimes they fought like animals over a scrap of meat. Killers without a purpose.
Matt was pretty certain it was just the next day, not two days later. The sun was up again, and the light and shade he could see through the small opening suggested it was approaching noon. He’d finally realized why they kept the door open, despite the constant air-conditioning. The pot smell bothered Scotty.
As Matt slowly died, Scotty talked about Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle. Finally he switched to professional football. He had an obsession with the classic teams of the sixties and early seventies, especially Miami. He droned on and on about the Dolphins’ perfect season with Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris at halfback. The backup quarterback Earl Morrall. He described plays against the Redskins and a big playoff game against the Chiefs that went into overtime.
Matt came to appreciate those talks because listening to Scotty gave him something to hold on to, something to think about other than gathering darkness and the fear of bleeding to death. He wondered if he’d see Janey after he died and hold her again. That thought was a comfort.
“Boss?” one of the mercenaries asked. He was standing guard in the doorway, with an AK pointed down at the floor.
Scotty stopped in the middle of describing Larry Csonka plowing through three defenders and knocking himself silly running into the goalpost. He seemed annoyed by the interruption.
“What?”
“Somebody is outside,” the guard said. “Women.”
“The fuck?”
The other bored mercenaries rushed the door like frat boys, their weapons at half-mast.
Scotty sighed and stared down at the bed for a few seconds. When he looked up, his face was just raw meat and writhing worms. Matt cringed as Scotty shook his head and a couple of gray worms fell off and dropped writhing on the bedsheet.
“I don’t care if it’s the chicks from ‘Black Swan’ licking each other,” Scotty said. “Stay sharp or I’ll shoot you myself.”
The stoner went to the window, opened it, and jammed himself into the corner with his weapon pointed outside. To Matt, the man’s eyes were black holes. His nose had fallen off. The other two went to their assigned posts as well. Scotty patted Matt’s leg in an absurd parody of politeness.
“Excuse me for a second.”
Scotty gripped his weapon and went to the door. He kept the weapon behind his back and filled the doorway. Matt gathered himself to call for help but then realized he’d just get whoever was outside killed.
The breathless voice of an unfamiliar female. “Sorry to bother you, honey.”
“Hold it right there, honey,” Scotty said. Matt watched as Scotty’s fingers tensed on the Glock. Matt hoped whoever it was wouldn’t be killed right there in front of him.
“We’re coming back from a party in Elko,” another woman said. Her voice sounded slurred. “We got a flat tire.”
The stoner said, “I’ll change it.”
Scotty shot him a dirty look. He peered out the door again. Seemingly satisfied, he relaxed. “Just stay where you are, okay? Someone will be out in a second.”
He closed the door, looked at the stoner. “Get them out of here.”
“Kill them?”
“Not unless you have to. Someone might come looking before we’re done with Cahill. Go change the tire and get the fuck back inside. Red, you cover him from the window. Don’t let any of them see your weapons. Anything goes wrong, take all three of them out.”
Three?
The mercenary called Red went to the window. Whatever he saw there made him whistle with appreciation.