Suddenly, Pendergast resisted, struggling feebly, and the Surgeon gave him a brutal kick in the side. Pendergast went rigid with pain, then abruptly fell limp. The Surgeon had a brief, unpleasant sensation of déjà vu, remembering how he had pushed Leng just a little too hard and ended up with a corpse. But no: Pendergast was still conscious. His eyes, though clouded with pain, remained open. He would be present and conscious when the axe fell. He knew what was coming. That was important to the Surgeon: very important.
And now another thought occurred to him. He recalled how, when Anne Boleyn was to be put to death, she’d sent for a French executioner, skilled in the art of decapitating with a sword. It was a cleaner, quicker, surer death than an axe. She had knelt, head erect, with no unseemly block. And she had tipped the man well.
The Surgeon hefted the axe in his hands. It seemed heavy, heavier than it had before. But surely he could swing it true. It would be an interesting challenge to do without the block.
He shoved the block away with his foot. Pendergast was already kneeling as if he had arranged himself in position, hands limp at his sides, head drooping, helpless and resigned.
“Your struggles cost you that quick death you asked for,” he said. “But I’m sure we’ll have it off in—oh—no more than two or three strokes. Either way, you’re about to experience something I’ve always wondered about. After the head goes rolling off, how long does the body remain conscious? Do you see the world spinning around as your head falls into the basket of sawdust? When the executioner raised the heads in Tower Yard, crying out ‘Behold the head of a traitor!,’ the eyes and lips continued to move. Did they actually seetheir own headless corpse?”
He gave the axe a practice swing. Why was it so heavy? And yet he was enjoying drawing out this moment. “Did you know that Charlotte Corday, who was guillotined for assassinating Marat during the French Revolution, blushed after the assistant executioner slapped her severed head before the assembled crowd? Or how about the pirate captain who was caught and sentenced to death? They lined up his men in a row. And they told him that after he was beheaded, whichever men he managed to walk past would be reprieved. So they cut off his head as he stood, and wouldn’t you know it, but that headless captain began to walk along the row of men, one step at a time. The executioner was so upset that he wouldn’t have any more victims that he stuck out his foot and tripped the captain.”
With this the Surgeon roared with laughter. Pendergast did not join in.
“Ah well,” Fairhaven said. “I guess I’ll never know how long consciousness lasts after one has lost one’s head. But youwill. Shortly.”
He raised the axe over his right shoulder, like a bat, and took careful aim.
“Give my regards to your great-grand-uncle,” he said, as he tensed his muscles to deliver the stroke.
TWELVE
NORA PILLOWED HER head on Smithback’s shoulder, tears seeping through her closed eyelids. She felt weak with despair. She had done all she could—and yet, all she could was not enough.
And then, through the fog of grief, she realized something: the beeping of the EKG had steadied.
She quickly raised her head, glanced at the monitors. Blood pressure had stabilized, and the pulse had risen slightly, to 60 beats per minute.
She stood in the chill room, trembling. In the end, the saline solution had made the crucial difference. Thank you. Thank you.
Smithback was still alive. But he was far from out of the woods. If she didn’t further replenish his fluid volume, he’d slip into shock.
The saline bag was empty. She glanced around the room, spotted a small refrigerator, opened it. Inside were half a dozen liter bags of similar solution, feeder lines wrapped around them. She pulled one out, detached the old line from the catheter, removed the empty bag from the IV rack and tossed it aside, then hung the new bag and attached its line. She watched the fluid dribble rapidly down the clear tube. Throughout, Smithback’s vital signs remained weak but stable. With any luck, he’d make it—if she could get him out of here and to a hospital.
She examined the gurney. It was on wheels, but detachable. There were straps. If she could find a way out of the basement, she just might be able to drag the gurney up a flight of stairs. It was worth a try.
She searched through the nearby cabinets, pulled out half a dozen green surgical sheets, and covered Smithback with them. She plucked a medical light from one of the cabinets, slipped it into her pocket. She gave another glance at the monitors at the head of the operating table, another look into the dark opening that led down into darkness. It was from there that the sound of the second shot had come. But the way out of the house lay up, not down. She hated to leave Smithback, if only for a moment, but it was vital he get real medical attention as soon as possible.
She pulled the flashlight from her pocket and, crossing the room, stepped through the doorway into the stone corridor beyond.
It was the work of five minutes to explore the basement, a warren of narrow passages and small damp rooms, all of the same undressed stone. The passages were low and dark, and she lost her way more than once. She found the crashed elevator—and, tragically, the corpse of O’Shaughnessy—but the elevator was inoperable, and there was no way up the shaft. Ultimately, she found a massive iron door, banded and riveted, which clearly led upstairs. It was locked. Pendergast,she thought, might be able to pick the lock—but then Pendergast wasn’t here.
At last she returned to the operating room, chilled and despondent. If there was another way out of the basement, it was too well hidden for her to find. They were locked in.
She approached the unconscious Smithback and caressed his brown hair. Once again, her eye fell on the opening in the wall that gave onto a descending staircase. It was pitch black, silent. She realized it had been silent for what seemed a long time, ever since the second shot. What could have happened?she wondered. Could Pendergast . . .
“Nora?”
Smithback’s voice was barely a whisper. She glanced down quickly. His eyes were open, his pale face tight with pain.
“Bill!” she cried, grabbing his hands. “Thank God.”
“This is getting old,” he murmured.
At first, she thought he was delirious. “What?”
“Getting hurt, waking up to find you ministering to me. The same thing happened in Utah, remember? Once was enough.” He tried to smile, but his face contorted in agony.
“Bill, don’t talk,” she said, stroking his cheek. “You’re going to be okay. We’re going to get you out of here. I’ll find a—”
But—mercifully—he had already slipped back into unconsciousness.
She glanced at the vitals and felt a huge rush of relief. They had improved—slightly. The saline bag continued to deliver critical fluid.
And then she heard the scream.
It came up from the dark stairs, faint and muffled. Nevertheless it was the most frightening, bone-chilling sound she had ever heard. It started at a high, tearing pitch: shrill, inhuman. It remained at a piercing high for what seemed at least a minute, then began wavering, ululating, before dropping into a gasping, slobbering growl. And then there was the distant clang of metal against stone.
And then, silence once again.
She stared at the opening in the wall, mind racing through the possibilities. What had happened? Was Pendergast dead? His opponent? Were they bothdead?
If Pendergast was hurt, she had to help him. He’d be able to pick the lock on the iron door, or find some other way for them to get Smithback out of this hell-hole. On the other hand—if the Surgeon was still alive, and Pendergast dead—she’d have to face him sooner or later anyway. It might as well be sooner: and on her own terms. She was damned if she was going to wait up here, a sitting duck, for the Surgeon to return and pick her off—and then finish the job on Smithback.