Jack waggled the knife in her direction. "Don't wimp out on me now."

22

Jack stuck the blade of his Spyderco Endura into the water he'd nuked to boiling in the microwave. From the front room he heard Jamie muttering as she sloshed tequila onto the skin over the lump in Blascoe's flank.

When the water stopped bubbling he poured it into a small aluminum pot.

"Not exactly sterile conditions," he said as he carried the hot water into the other room. "But we'll go straight from here to a doctor I know who'll load you up with antibiotics."

Blascoe lay stretched out on the couch, his shirt pulled up to nipple level.

"Let's just get on with it," he said.

Jamie looked up. "What about stitches?"

Jack already had that figured. "We just tie a sheet around him. That'll hold the edges together. The doc will place the sutures."

Jamie looked pale and sweaty. Her hand shook as she swabbed on the tequila.

"I don't like this, Jack."

Not too crazy about it myself, he thought.

He'd stabbed and he'd been stabbed, but he'd never got down and made a surgical incision. He couldn't show any hesitancy or Jamie might fall apart. And if she did that it would only drag out this whole scene, and Jack wanted out of here yesterday. Every extra minute increased the chances of running into Dormentalist goons.

And he wished he had gloves. He didn't feature the idea of getting some wild-ass dude's blood all over his hands.

He looked at Blascoe. "You don't by any chance have AIDS, do you?"

"I can honestly answer that with a no. They did a shitload of tests when they worked me up for my tumor and, seeing as how I'd done a few drugs in my time, that was one of the first things they looked for. But I've never mainlined so I came out negative."

"All right then. It's time."

He tossed one of the throw pillows to Blascoe. "Bite on that." He handed the pot of water to Jamie. "Remember, if the surface of the bomb drops five degrees, we've had it. So keep that water right up next to me."

She gripped the handle and nodded. She did not look well at all.

"You sure you can handle this?"

She shook her head. "No, but I'm going to try. So hurry."

Right. No sense in drawing it out like it was some scene from ER.

He went down on one knee next to the couch, stretched Blascoe's skin over the lump, took a breath, and made the cut—a quick slice, two inches long and half an inch deep. Blascoe was kicking and making muffled screeching noises into the pillow, but all in all doing a pretty decent job of holding still. Next to him, Jamie groaned.

"Everybody hang in," he said. "We're almost there."

Jack hadn't been crazy about making the incision, but he didn't mind the blood. He'd seen plenty—others' and his own. Slipping his fingers under a man's skin, though, was a whole other country.

Clenching his teeth he forced his hand forward, pushed his index and middle fingers through the bloody slit while his other hand pushed on the disk from the outside. He felt it press against his fingertips, then he trapped it and began to wriggle it free. It didn't move easily. Had scar tissue formed around it? He pushed and pulled harder. Blascoe began to buck but Jack rode with him.

"A few seconds," he gritted. "Just a few more seconds."

He felt the thing move and glanced to his immediate right where Jamie held the pot of hot water.

"Get ready, Jamie. Here it comes."

And then he had it. He guided the red, dripping disk through the incision. Not a second to waste now.

"Okay. Here she comes. Where's that—?"

"Oh, God!"

He heard a gagging sound, felt hot water splash across his thigh, and looked over to see Jamie with her head turned away, quaking as she retched, the pot handle twisting in her hand, the hot water pouring over Jack and the couch.

"Shit!"

He grabbed for the pot with his free hand, caught it before it emptied, but felt the slippery disk shoot from between his fingers. It slithered across Blascoe's bloody skin, fell to the floor, and rolled away on its edge.

"Oh, Christ!"

Jack lunged for it, grabbed it, and for a second, didn't know what to do: Toss it across the room or drop it in what was left of the hot water? The disk slipped in his fingers… might not get a good throw… he shoved it into the hot water, then swung the pot around and put it down around the far corner of the couch, hoping the upholstery would absorb most of the shrapnel from the pot. He rolled back toward Jamie and shoved her away.

But no explosion. He waited a few more heartbeats, but all he heard were Jamie's gasps and Blascoe's groans.

"Sorry," Jamie said as she lifted her head and wiped her chin. "I just—"

"Forget it." Jack jumped to his feet. "Let's haul him down to the car and get the hell out of here."

"Jesus," Blascoe said. He was bathed in sweat and had his hands cupped around the bloody incision but not touching it. "Like ouch, man. That fucking hurt!"

"How's it feel now?"

A weak smile. "Compared to when you were digging into me? Not bad."

"Good. Now move your hands."

Jack had arranged a rolled-up bedsheet under the small of Blascoe's back before operating on him. Once the hands were out of the way he looped it out and cinched it around him.

Blascoe grunted. "Have to be so tight?"

"Got to keep those edges together." It was the best he could do till he got the old guy to Doc Hargus. He pulled him to his feet. "Let's go."

Blascoe swayed. "Whoa. Dizzy."

Jack didn't have to say anything. Jamie jumped in and grabbed Blascoe's other arm, steadying him. She looked better but still shaken.

"Okay," Jack said. "Straight down the driveway."

Jamie held back. "Why don't we bring the car up here? Be faster."

"But the driveway dead ends up here. Somebody noses into the lower end and we're busted. Come on. Let's move. We've wasted too much time already."

He tugged Blascoe toward the door and Jamie came along. Off the front porch, into the downpour, then down the driveway. Within seconds their clothes were soaked through to the skin. Jack found the chill refreshing.

The twin ruts of the driveway had become mini creeks. Jack sloshed down the one on the right, Jamie had the left, both supporting the rubber-legged Blascoe on the grassy median.

"This is farther than I've ever come," the old man said. "If we had light you'd see yellow ribbons tied around some of these trees. Those were the warning signs that I was nearing the thousand-foot line. Yellow ribbons! That son of a bitch Jensen thinks he's such a comedian. He—"

Jack heard a muffled explosion, felt an impact against his flank that knocked him into the brush bordering the driveway. He lay stunned for a few seconds, his ears ringing. His right hand was gripping something. He squinted at it in the dark for a few uncomprehending heartbeats, then cried out and tossed it away.

An arm. With no body attached.

But how—?

And then he knew: The bastards had stuck two bombs in Blascoe—just in case he ever found the nerve to remove the obvious one.

Jack slumped forward and pounded his fists into the mud. He'd messed up—no, he'd fucked up. The possibility had occurred to him, but Blascoe had said there'd been only one incision, and Jack hadn't felt anything unusual under the bomb he'd removed. Of course, Blascoe had been kicking and writhing at the time. Or they could have buried it way deep.

"I'm sorry, Coop," he whispered. "Christ, I'm so sorry."

And then, somewhere on the far side of the driveway, he heard a woman screaming.

Jack struggled to his feet, checked to make sure he still had the Glock, then lurched toward the sound, wiping bits of flesh from his shirt and jeans as he moved. He found Jamie kneeling in the mud and rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if she were in a shower.