Gone Tomorrow

I put the pry bar in my left hand and hustled hard in my loose rubber shoes and made it to the personnel door before the guy was all the way through it. I didn’t want him to kick the hose coupler away and let the door close behind him. That would give me a problem I didn’t need. The guy heard me and turned in the doorway and his hands came up defensively and I shoved him hard and tumbled him inside. He slid on the trash and went down on one knee. I picked him up by the neck and held him at arm’s length and eased the brass coupler aside with my toe and let the door close until it clicked. Then I turned back and was about to explain the guy’s options to him but I saw that he already understood them. Be good, or get hit. He chose to be good. He went into a crouch and raised his hands in a small abbreviated gesture of surrender. I hefted the pry bar in my left hand and straight-armed the guy onward towards the head of the stairs. He was meek all the way down to the basement. He gave me no trouble on the way through the office room. Then we got to the second room and he saw the three guys on the floor and sensed what was in store for him. He tensed up. Adrenalin kicked in. Fight or flight. Then he looked at me again, a huge determined man in ludicrous shoes, holding a big metal bar.

He went quiet.

I asked him, ‘Do you know the combinations for the cells?’

He said, ‘No.’

‘So how do you give painkiller injections?’

‘Through the bars.’

‘What happens if someone has a seizure and you can’t get in the cell?’

‘I have to call.’

‘Where is your equipment?’

‘In my locker.’

‘Show me,’ I said. ‘Open it.’

We went back to the anteroom and he led me to a locker and spun the combination dial. The door swung open. I asked him, ‘Can you open any of the other cabinets?’

He said, ‘No, just this one.’

His locker had a bunch of shelves inside, piled high with all kinds of medical stuff. Wrapped syringes, a stethoscope, small phials of colourless liquids, packs of cotton balls, pills, bandages, gauze, tape.

Plus a shallow box of tiny nitrogen capsules.

And a box of wrapped darts.

Which made some kind of bureaucratic sense. I imagined the management conference back when they were writing the operations manual. The Pentagon. Staff officers in charge. Some junior ranks present. An agenda. Some DoD counsel insisting that the dart gun’s ammunition be held by a qualified medical officer. Because anaesthetic was a drug. And so on and so forth. Then some other active-duty type saying that compressed nitrogen wasn’t medical. A third guy pointing out it made no sense at all to keep the propellant separate from the load. Around and around. I imagined exasperated agents eventually giving up and giving in. OK, whatever, let’s move on.

I asked, ‘What exactly is in the darts?’

The guy said, ‘Local anaesthetic to help the wound site, plus a lot of barbiturate.’

‘How much barbiturate?’

‘Enough.’

‘For a gorilla?’

The guy shook his head. ‘Reduced dose. Calculated for a normal human.’

‘Who did the calculation?’

‘The manufacturer.’

‘Knowing what it was for?’

‘Of course.’

‘With specifications and purchase orders and everything?’

‘Yes.’

‘And tests?’

‘Down at Guantanamo.’

‘Is this a great country, or what?’ The guy said nothing.

I asked him, ‘Are there side effects?’‘None.’

‘You sure? You know why I’m asking, right?’

The guy nodded. He knew why I was asking. I was fresh out of computer cords, so I had to keep half an eye on him while I found the gun and loaded it. Loading it was a jigsaw puzzle. I wasn’t familiar with the technology. I had to proceed on common sense and logic alone. Clearly the trigger mechanism tripped the gas release. Clearly the gas propelled the dart. And guns are basically simple machines. They have fronts and backs. Cause and effect happens in a rational sequence. I got the thing charged up inside forty seconds.

I said, ‘You want to lie down on the floor?’

The guy didn’t answer.

I said, ‘You know, to save bumping your head.’

The guy got down on the floor.

I asked him, ‘Any preference as to where? Arm? Leg?’

He said, ‘It works best into muscle mass.’

‘So roll over.’

He rolled over and I shot him in the ass.

I reloaded the thing twice more and put darts into the two agents that were liable to wake up. Which gave me at least an eight-hour margin, unless there were other unanticipated arrivals on the horizon. Or unless the agents were supposed to call in with status checks every hour. Or unless there was a car already on its way to take us back to D.C. Which conflicting thoughts made me feel half relaxed and half urgent. I carried the pry bar through to the cell block. Jacob Mark looked at me and said nothing. Theresa Lee looked at me and said, ‘They sell shoes like that on Eighth Street now?’