Chapter 10
The lights were still turned down to nighttime dimness when String's abnormally acute hearing, honed even more by the recent hours spent in almost complete silence, heard footsteps in the hallway outside. Just one person, hesitating in front of his door. His heart rate jumped. Friend or foe? Elena or the doctor? The last dose of sedative he'd been given had worn off hours ago, and he felt as if every nerve in his body was balanced on a knife edge.
The door opened slowly and the individual slipped in without turning up the room lights. Still, there was enough light for him to be able to identify the last person he was expecting to see here: Ann Strete. And she was pushing an empty wheelchair.
What the hell did she want with him now?
Ann closed the door and locked it behind her, then came over to the bedside and stood peering down at him. "Hawke?" she whispered. "Are you awake?"
"Yeah, I'm awake," he rasped. "Did you bring daddy dearest with you this time? Or Dr. Demento?"
She had already started to unfasten the arm restraints. "No, but they'll be here soon. I came to get you out, Hawke. You've got to take me with you."
"Lady, it's your fault I'm here in the first place. I don't have to take you anywhere."
"That's not fair! I did my best two months ago. I told you who you were and what happened to you. It's not my fault if it wasn't enough."
He looked at the wall above the bed. "What about that camera?"
"Nobody's watching it right now. There's only one nurse and she's on her break for another half hour." Ann pulled off the second cuff. "Come on, Hawke, we've got to go!" She leaned over to tug him off the bed toward the waiting wheelchair.
He let her haul at him, so that when he finally pushed off the bed their combined momentum sent her crashing backwards and into the chair. It went flying across the room and Ann smacked into the floor. An instant later String was on top of her.
Her eyes widened in sudden fear. Even in the dimness she could see the expression on his face. He looked like a man completely out of control. "Where's Horn? Did he send you here?"
"I don't know where he is! He said he'd be here this morning. He told me that he wanted me to meet an old friend of his. And that he thought I could help this friend. I don't know what he wants me to do."
"Oh, you're gonna help me all right, Angelica. Where's the key for that door?"
"I'm not telling you! Let me up, damn you!"
He ignored that and instead began to grope in the pockets of her black silk slacks with one hand. The other hand kept her wrists pinned over her head, against the floor. With her long blonde hair wildly disarranged and the look of increasing terror on her face, she looked almost exactly the way he had, with immense satisfaction, imagined seeing her in his more vindictive moments after he had escaped from Horn's bunker in Texas.
"You knew people," he said, looking down at her.
"What are you talking about?"
"You knew people who could have helped me. Why didn't you call them? Why did you just walk away and leave me here? You could have let someone know before you took off for Antigua or wherever the hell you went."
"I was scared, all right? No, more than that, I was terrified. Horn knew I was up to something. I don't know how, but he always knows if I even think of going behind his back. If anyone showed up to rescue you, he would have known it was because of me. And if I'd stayed with you, anyone who did come would probably be after me too. Anyhow, I did call! I have called! I talked to Dominic Santini yesterday. I told him to bring Airwolf. He's on his way. He might even be here by now."
"Yeah, right." His hand found the doorkey and pulled it out, setting it aside.
"Now," he said hoarsely, "if daddy thought it was a good idea for you to come see me, let's find out just how much he doesn't care about you."
"Hawke! For God's sake, I came to rescue you!"
"Yeah? And just what did you think you were going to rescue? The little wind-up Stringfellow Hawke toy that you and Horn created before? So we could go on happily ever after?"
"I'm sorry about that. Didn't I tell you how sorry I was about that? That wasn't the way I wanted you. It never was. Hawke, you have to believe me!"
She writhed underneath him, trying desperately to throw him off. He laughed mirthlessly. "Afraid your credibility rating is about subzero. But you better believe this, you bitch. In case they didn't tell you, I'm officially considered a danger to others."
The hand that wasn't holding her wrists came down and tore at the waistband of her slacks, pulling them down along with her panties, and then his knee drove between her legs and spread them apart. She opened her mouth to scream and found it blocked by his, pressing down hard enough to bruise. The scream came out as a whimper.
"I thought this was what you wanted," he said mockingly. "Angelica."
With the tiny amount of freedom she'd gained from the easing of the pressure on her mouth, she bit his lip as hard as she could. "Damn you, Hawke, I'm not Angelica!"
He laughed again. It was one of the most chilling sounds she'd ever heard in her life, as terrifying as anything she had ever heard from Horn. Blood welled up on his lip and a red drop landed on her face; he didn't seem to have even noticed the bite. "Too late. Doesn't matter now."
She could feel him ready to take her, and couldn't stop herself from making another whimpering sound, wondering how much he was going to make her hurt.
"String! What the hell are you doing!"
The voice, a hiss rather than a shout, acted like a bucket of cold water being dumped on him. He lifted his head and turned to see the door open again. Elena stood in the doorway, carrying a bundle of something in her hand. She was staring at him in shock. "String?" she said again.
He looked from her to Ann, staring up at him with wide terrified eyes, and rolled away to lean back against the bed. He dropped his head into his hands. "Oh, God," he mumbled. "I don't know." He looked suddenly as if he might be sick.
Ann scrambled away, trying frantically to pull her clothing back into place at the same time. Elena went to kneel beside her. "Are you all right?"
Ann nodded jerkily, huge eyes still fixed on String. Elena patted her shoulder awkwardly. She had no idea what to say to the other woman; she wasn't even sure just what she had interrupted. But she did know that they couldn't sit around here. She went back to String, still sitting there as if in shock, and dropped the bundle she'd been carrying into his lap, where it covered his wilting erection. It was a set of his clothes, including a jacket. "Come on, String, you have to get moving. Here. Put these on."
He took the clothes, looking around as if hoping to find someplace private to get changed in. Elena shook her head in annoyance. "It's a bit late for modesty. Hurry up. We need to get you out of here before the night nurse comes back and takes a look at the monitor." She jerked her head in the direction of the camera. "And before she misses her set of master keys." She tugged the hospital gown over his head without bothering to undo the ties at the back.
"Horn and Fairling will be here soon," said Ann, shakily climbing to her feet, using the wall for support.
"They're already here," said Elena brutally.
While String scrambled into the clothes she brought the wheelchair over. He ignored it, getting to his feet and heading for the door under his own power. Momentarily distracted, she stared at him, eyes wide in wonder. "String! You're walking!"
"Yeah," he replied tersely. How long he'd be able to stay on his own two feet was debatable. Leg muscles that had done nothing at all for the better part of a year were weak and slow to respond; he wasn't sure how long they would support him for. Hell, in the aftermath of what had nearly just happened, his whole body felt weak and shaky. He shoved the thought away. The legs, along with the rest of him, would just have to keep working for as long as they needed to.
"But what happened? I mean, how – "
"Don't know. It just happened, that's all. Let's get going."
Elena shook her head in disbelief but led the way out of the room. The stolen keys got them out of the locked hallway containing the isolation ward and into the corridor where String's old room was located. She led them toward the door at the end, the one that String had escaped through four days ago, and unlocked it. The stairwell led past the fire exit to the basement, and just as they came through the door they could hear footsteps below. Two men, coming up. String caught a glimpse of them through the railing; he didn't recognize either of them. Horn's men, he thought.
They turned and hurried back toward the still-deserted nursing station. The door next to it that led to the rest of the clinic premises opened and there was Dr. Fairling, with another figure right behind her.
John Bradford Horn.
His eyes seemed to take on an odd gleam as he faced String. "Stringfellow Hawke," he said with slow satisfaction, as if the two women didn't exist. "Or should I say Mr. Vine?"
Horn's two men came through the door at the far end of the hall and began to close in.
Elena grabbed String's arm and pulled him backwards toward another door a few feet behind them. "Come on! This way!" This door was locked as well but she already had the key out.
The two men began to run. Fairling and Horn both made a dash at String. He gave the doctor a powerful shove, sending her hard into Horn, then Elena had the door open and they were running down a narrow passageway that ended in a swing door. They emerged through that into a kitchen, stainless steel counters gleaming in the moonlight coming through the windows along one wall. There was yelling behind them as someone started trying to smash the hallway door, then the sound of a gunshot as someone else blew the lock away. String grabbed a couple of knives from a block on one of the counters. "How many men does Horn have with him?" he demanded.
"There were two with me," gasped Ann. "I don't know how many others there are. Probably at least six."
There was a delivery door at the far side of the room. Two men came charging through the swing door just as they reached it, both taking aim at the three. String lobbed a knife in their direction; it wasn't a throwing knife nor was it flung accurately, but it came close enough to make the shooter flinch and miss his target. Ann screamed as the shot shattered a large skillet hanging on the wall next to her head. String grabbed her by the arm and propelled her out the door in front of him.
They hurried down a short drive alongside one of the wings of the clinic. String was desperately trying to move faster, but it was all he could do to maintain a rapid hobble. Elena draped his right arm over her shoulders and put her left arm around his waist to support him, and Ann stuck close to them, apparently going on the safety in numbers theory. The parking lot was in front of them, about fifty feet away beyond the end of the building. Shots were being fired behind them from the pair in the kitchen, and suddenly three more men, also armed, appeared around the corner in their path. String yelled at the two women to hit the ground and launched himself at the closest man.
He heard Horn shouting from somewhere behind him that he wanted him alive. That was good to know, although he didn't say a word about not maiming. String had no such compunction, and buried the second knife he had grabbed almost to the hilt in the man's gut. Adrenalin momentarily supplying strength and speed, he vaulted over the collapsing body and landed a vicious roundhouse punch in the face of the next oncomer. The third man dove at him, catching him around the waist and carrying him to the ground.
After that point he lost track of the sequence of events. While he was trying to protect himself from the man who was now kneeling on top of him and using his body as a punching bag, he both saw and heard Ann, screaming like a banshee, clinging to the back of the man who had been his second victim, kicking and clawing and pummeling at him for all she was worth. String hoped that Horn's edict was meant to include all three of them and not just him, but at the moment he didn't have time to worry about anything except trying to stop the man on top of him from punching his lights out. In any case Ann seemed to be faring better than he was.
Suddenly he heard the roar of a car engine and saw headlights bouncing wildly over the snow, then came Elena's voice again, yelling something. There were more shots. In the split second that his opponent was distracted he managed to drive one arm straight up into the man's face, knocking him sufficiently off balance for String to wiggle out from under. The man kicked at his legs. String stumbled and went down again with a grunt, but on top of the man this time. He smashed his right fist as hard as he could into the face under him, then for good measure landed a blow almost as hard with his left into the man's throat. He staggered to his feet, his legs rubbery and his vision blurry, and saw a little red Toyota reversing down the driveway towards them, swinging wildly from side to side.
It skidded to a stop a couple of feet away and he saw Elena at the wheel. Someone was shooting again; the rear window dissolved in a shower of glass. The two men who had followed them through the kitchen were now rushing forward, weapons at the ready. String scooped up a gun from one of his fallen opponents and fired almost without aiming. One of them went down; the other dove to the side. String fired a couple more shots in his direction, then applied the butt hard to the head of the man who was still tangled with Ann. He grabbed her arm, pulled open the back door of the Toyota, thrust her in and fell in on top of her. Elena floored the gas pedal and was charging back down the driveway before he could even get the door closed again.
"Are you okay?" he shouted as soon as he had enough breath, realizing that he and Ann were lying on top of shards of the rear window.
"I think so," she answered breathlessly, the car skidding again as she rounded the corner of the building and gunned the engine once more toward the front gate. "You?"
"Yeah." He looked at Ann and hastily put as much distance as he could between them while still keeping his head below the level of the rear window. "How about you?"
"I'm fine." She wasn't; she was pale and shaking.
"Oh, no," said Elena. String looked up to see two men struggling to slide the gates of the electrified fence closed across the main driveway. Presumably they had been opened for Horn and Dr. Fairling's arrival. They were having a hard time getting them closed again through the layer of snow. String sat up, stuck his arm out and let fly a couple more shots; the men abandoned the gates and took aim with their own weapons.
"Elena, keep your head down!" he said urgently. She hunched down as much as possible behind the wheel. Bullets whined off the hood and an immense spider web of cracked glass appeared in the windshield. They swerved wildly to the right, then Elena had the car back under control and aimed straight at the gates. String wasn't sure they had enough clearance left. One of the men resumed shoving frantically at his side and the gap narrowed even more.
With a nasty shriek of metal against metal, the little car hit the leading edge of both gates and scraped its way through, leaving several coats of paint behind.
"Nice driving, Elena," said String with warm approval as their unlikely getaway car shot down the road, bouncing and fishtailing around on the snowy surface.
"They'll follow us, won't they?" she said worriedly.
He looked back and could already see the lights of a bigger, taller vehicle ‒ probably a four-wheel drive - starting through the gates. "Yup," he said. "Don't worry. Just keep driving."
"Don't worry? You're crazy!"
He nearly started to laugh. "Not nearly as crazy as I used to be."
He checked the clip in the liberated Beretta M9. Only eight rounds remaining. He swept glass from the window ledge and took aim as carefully as he could at the pursuing vehicle. He needed to make every one of his eight shots count; the men behind had no such restriction. He ducked as a shot hit the window frame above him.
They slithered around a corner and up a hill. The wheels spun frantically near the top and the heavier, more surefooted vehicle behind gained substantially. String took advantage of it to send one bullet through the centre of the windshield. The 4X4 swerved, nearly going off the road, then took up the pursuit again. Behind it String caught a glimpse of more headlights.
They reached a series of S-bends, running downhill and then up again. Elena had a white-knuckled death grip on the wheel and found herself wishing that she had made it to St. Elzbieta's a bit more often. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee . . .
Just as they had made it to the top of another hill with yet another bend coming up a shot from behind blew out one of the rear tires. The Toyota fishtailed dramatically, hit the snowbank at the side of the road with enough force to send it over, and went tumbling down the wooded hillside, finally coming to a halt on the road below, right side up but with the engine stalled out.
They were almost at the main road by now and the trees had drawn back, leaving clear verges on either side. Elena managed to lift her head and look groggily through what was left of the windshield.
What was that thing in front of them? And what was that weird droning noise?
Fighting dizziness, she was able to turn her head enough to look into the back seat. Both String and Ann were still there, looking equally dazed. String's arms were wrapped protectively around Ann. Behind them the 4X4 came into view.
Ann looked at the thing in the road ahead of them and pulled herself away from String. "Well, it's about time!" she said, almost sounding happy. She put a hand on the door handle and tried to open it.
Gunfire erupted behind them. Elena wasn't sure if it was aimed at them or at the ‒ whatever it was. The second pursuit vehicle had arrived behind the first. More shots. Elena could only put her head down and pray.
There was what looked like a strangely localized blizzard in front of them as the thing rose into the air. The entire car was shaking. It climbed to a height of about twenty feet above them and suddenly let loose with gunfire far more powerful than anything that had been fired so far. The shooting behind them seemed to stop. Then the screaming began.
The thing came back to earth again, rocking slightly before settling onto three wheels. Nearby tree branches were being whipped by the powerful drafts it was creating. A door at the side opened and a figure in what looked like some kind of gray flight suit emerged and began to run toward them, slipping in the snow.
"What is it?" gasped Elena.
"Our ticket out of here," said Ann, struggling to get her door open and finally succeeding. "Come on," she shouted back impatiently at String, who was showing no signs of following her. Elena looked back at him. He was still looking dazed. Not only dazed, but increasingly terrified.
Elena suddenly realized that this must be his "black machine", the one that had caused him such horrible nightmares, sleeping and waking. Looking at it, Elena could understand his fear. The machine looked like a predator. A killer. It was a helicopter, all right ‒ she could see that now ‒ but she had never seen a helicopter that was black and white and as intimidating as this one.
She struggled with her own door - the frame had been bent in the tumble down the hillside ‒ and pulled herself out, reaching in toward him through the door Ann had left open. "String ‒ String, it's all right. It shot at the men chasing us. It's not going to hurt us."
String's eyes had gone wild. Suddenly he launched himself out of the car, sending her sprawling into the snow. Drawing the stolen gun, he fired wildly at the helicopter. The shots bounced off its surface in a series of tiny flares. The man in the gray flight suit dove over the snowbank at the side of the road, out of the line of fire. The firing pin clicked on an empty chamber. String flung himself into the driver's seat and turned the key. The engine stuttered, then caught. Amazingly, the battered little car could still run. He floored the gas pedal and drove it straight at the black nose of the aircraft.
Someone was yelling ‒ the man in the flight suit. The helicopter lifted off again, rocking crazily from side to side. The Toyota shot through the space that it had occupied, slid out of control and went off the road, nose down into a deep snow-filled ditch. The engine stalled again. Nothing moved.
The man in the flight suit clawed his way back over the snowbank and ran toward the car. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the two women running in the same direction, but he was much closer to it than they were. He half-staggered, half-slid down into the ditch and yanked open the buckled front door.
The driver was folded over the wheel, motionless. The other man grabbed his shoulders, pulling him gently upright. "String?"
String squinted up at him blearily. There was something wrong with his eyes; he couldn't get them to focus properly. There was something familiar-looking about the man in the flight suit. His mouth formed the word "Dom?" but he couldn't quite get it past his lips. Everything was happening too fast, the adrenalin rush had receded, and he'd run out of strength to fend off the familiar darkness that was threatening to engulf him again.
"String?" the man repeated. "String, it's me, Dom! Are you all right?" Dumb question, he thought as soon as he'd spoken the words. Of course String wasn't all right. If he had been, he wouldn't be looking at Dominic Santini as if he'd just seen a ghost. He wouldn't have just fired at Airwolf and then tried to ram her.
There were more shots from behind them. Some of the surviving gunmen must have gathered their wits and their weapons sufficiently to start firing again. More headlights were coming down the hill from the direction of the clinic, and shots sounded from that direction as well. "Come on, String," said Dominic urgently. "We've gotta get you outta here. Think you can walk?"
The two women had arrived, breathless. One of them, dark-haired, with what looked like the beginnings of a big lump on her forehead, pushed him out of the way with a muttered apology and bent over String. "String, it's me, Elena. You have to get out of the car. It's not safe there. Now come on, let's get away from here and go someplace nice and warm. You'll be able to think better then. Come on, I know you can do it."
Dominic moved out of the way, watching in astonishment as the woman, who must have been much stronger than her slight figure suggested, got one arm around String and began to tug him out of the car. String wasn't being much help. As soon as he tried to stand, his legs buckled under him. Dom moved forward again, but Ann slipped past him and got String's other arm over her shoulders. Between them, the two women maneuvered him out of the ditch and toward the helicopter. Dom hovered close, wanting to help but afraid to interfere. If the situation hadn't been so urgent, he wasn't sure he would even want String anywhere near Airwolf right at the moment, until he found out what was wrong with him.
There was a sudden roar and an explosion, and the two vehicles that had been following them vanished in a huge fireball. That effectively put a stop to all the shooting. The car that had been making its way down the road was struggling to reverse back up the hill.
Dom got the two women and String, who wasn't much more than a limp bundle by now, into Airwolf, then squeezed past and into the engineer's seat. With Caitlin at the controls, they lifted off and headed westward into the still-dark sky. Behind them, the horizon was beginning to grow gray. The shells of the two cars still burned, and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles sped along the highway toward them.
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They flew in a strange silence. More than anything else Dom wanted to take String by the shoulders, find out if he was okay and ask where the hell he'd been for the past eight months. But he couldn't. String wouldn't look in his direction, wouldn't even really look at anything, as if he was trying to pretend that he was someplace else entirely. He hadn't said a word. He still seemed to be in some kind of shock, and his face looked like he'd just taken a hell of a beating. At least he was quiet, if not exactly calm, showing no signs of the craziness he'd been displaying earlier. Dom was keeping his fingers crossed that he stayed that way.
The two women weren't in much better shape. They were both shaking with cold and reaction, and the one who seemed to be called Elena had a nasty bump on her forehead, probably from hitting the Toyota's steering wheel during the tumble down the hillside. Once they were in level flight Dom rummaged around in a storage bin and found a couple of blankets. He pulled one over Elena and String ‒ they were wedged in together in the little jump seat next to Dom's station ‒ and passed the other one up to the blonde woman in the co-pilot's position. He had only seen Angelica Horn once, but she had the kind of face that was hard to forget. What she was doing here he couldn't imagine. Caitlin, eyes locked ahead, was fairly vibrating with tension. Dom remembered only too well her declared intention of revenge on this woman after their first encounter with John Bradford Horn, and hoped that he wouldn't end up with a catfight on his hands at four thousand feet.
With the extra weight Airwolf was carrying, they had to make a stop to refuel. On Dom's advice, Caitlin put them down at a small airstrip just west of the Mississippi. While she went off to negotiate for a couple hundred gallons of Jet A and a bag of ice, Dom pulled off his helmet and checked on their passengers. Both Angelica and String appeared to be dozing. "How are you feeling?" he asked Elena.
She was still looking shaky, and the bump on her forehead was definitely swelling. "Not too good. Do you think I could get some fresh air? I'm not a very good flier."
"Oh, sure." Hastily he popped the left hatch. Elena crawled out stiffly and stood breathing in great gulps of the cold starlit air. "You wanna change spots with ‒ er, Miss Horn? You'd be more comfortable up front."
Ann had been awakened by the cold air. "Better not," she said quickly. Something happening there, thought Dom. String's hand shot out, belying his somnolent appearance, groping for Elena's sleeve like a kid grabbing for a security blanket. Elena gave Dom a watery smile. "I'll be okay where I am, thanks. Where are we going?"
"California."
"Is that where String lives?"
"Yeah."
Smiling again, she leaned back inside Airwolf. "Hear that, String? You're going home. You can finally show me that lake in the mountains."
No response. Aside from that one almost involuntary movement, String might have been newly dead.
"And you can't fool me, Stringling. I know you're awake. You know, if you'd rather not be here, I'm sure the nice gentleman can turn this helicopter around and take you back to the clinic. I'll bet Dr. Fairling would just love to see you again."
His eyes popped open. So did Dominic's. He'd never heard anyone take that coaxing, maternal tone with Stringfellow Hawke before. And he sure as hell would never have imagined String letting anyone call him Stringling.
"That's better," said Elena with satisfaction. "Your face is all bruised. I think there's some ice coming. How does the rest of you feel?"
"I'm fine," grunted String.
"Sure you are. Well, I could use some ice, even if you don't want it."
String reached out and touched her face gently. "You're hurt. I'm sorry."
"It's just a bump. I'll be okay."
He sat up more. "Elena, your car ‒ "
She shrugged and tried for a light tone, although truthfully she was more than a little upset about the demise of her faithful Toyota. "It was time for a trade in anyway."
Dom could see Caitlin approaching. She was carrying a couple of bags of ice in one hand and a cardboard tray of takeout coffee cups in the other. She also had the look of someone whose credit card has just taken a huge beating. "Fuel truck's on its way," she said. "I sure hope somebody reimburses me for this real soon. Here." She started handing around coffee cups.
"String, your friends have just saved our lives twice over," Elena informed him when she had her hands wrapped around one of the foam cups and a few sips of the heavenly hot brew inside of her. "Don't you think it's time you introduced us?"
"Uh ‒ yeah." For the first time his gaze slid in Dom's direction, then skittered away again as if embarrassed. "Dominic Santini, Caitlin O'Shannessy. Ann Strete, Elena Wojnowski." He looked directly at Elena and extended his hand to her with a flash of that ridiculously sweet smile of his. "Stringfellow Hawke."
Elena shook his hand, her face lighting up with happiness. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Hawke - at last."