coming. The heel of his foot hit the North Korean directly on the chin, knocking him back against the car. Hemingway stopped and looked at the blood on his arm, then turned his attention back to the man.
“This ain’t going to be pretty,” Reuben said.
Hemingway’s first strike killed the man. Stone could see this from where he was crouched. He had never seen a blow that hard thrown by a human being. It was more like the raw power of a grizzly bear.
And yet Hemingway did not let the North Korean fall. He held him up against the car and kept striking away, in the head, in the chest and in the abdomen. He was hitting him with such force and astonishing speed that when Hemingway finally let go and the man slumped to the ground, Stone and Reuben could see that the car door behind him had been caved in.
Hemingway stepped back and took a deep breath as he surveyed the three dead men. As he went to pick up his swords, Stone took out his pistol and drew a bead on the back of Hemingway’s head. Suddenly, Hemingway stiffened, stood straight and slowly turned in the direction of where Stone and Reuben were hidden.
He stared up at the window. Although he couldn’t possibly see them, it was clear that Hemingway was aware of their presence.
As Hemingway stood there, apparently waiting for the bullet to come, Stone lowered his gun. Hemingway waited a few seconds, and then, in a blink, he was gone.
Simpson ran as fast as she could but was hopelessly disoriented. She finally stopped and looked around. She was in a maze. “Alex?” she cried out.
“Jackie!”
She ran toward his voice.
“Jackie, they’re in here somewhere. Watch yourself.”
She instantly stopped and knelt down, listening. All she could hear at first was her breathing. Then the sounds of footsteps, stealthy footsteps. She backed down the corridor, away from them. She held her pistol up, ready to fire
“Jackie?”
“Down here,” she called out.
Alex stuck his head around the corner and saw her. He quickly joined her.
She looked at his filthy clothes. “What the hell happened to you?”
He rubbed at the muck. “Don’t ask. Just don’t ever say I lack patience, or I’ll deck you.” He gazed behind him. “Two guys blew past me coming in here. Any sign of them?”
She shook her head. “So how do we get out of here?”
“It’s as simple as checking the floor.”
“What?”
Alex didn’t answer. He walked down the corridor and stopped where it intersected with another. He got on his knees and looked at the floor. “Damn, how about that?”
Simpson hurried forward and joined him.
“See?” He was pointing at a small dot in a crevice in the floor that was barely visible.
“A red dot,” Simpson said. “What does that tell us?”
“Which way to turn.”
“How?”
“You must be a landlubber.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning sailors know that red means port and port means left.” He turned left down the corridor, and they walked along until they reached another intersection. There they found another dot. This one was green.
“Green means starboard and starboard means—”
“Right,” Simpson finished for him.
They made their way through the corridor this way and soon found themselves at the end.
“Okay, how did you know about the dots?” Simpson demanded.
In daylight the shot would’ve been simple. Looking into a world of green haze and knowing you had only one chance made the task far more complex.
He squeezed the trigger. The chain holding the cage, which rested right above where the North Korean was hiding, was cut neatly in two. And the one-ton cage fell.
Stone continued to watch, his pistol ready. What he saw next slightly sickened him, even though it had been his intent. The blood flowed under the gurneys and started pooling a few inches in front of this barrier.
Stone rose and made his way over to the corner. He cautiously peered over the wall of gurneys. Only a hand was visible from under the fallen cage. The man hadn’t even had time to scream. In Stone’s old world this would have been labeled a “perfect kill.”
“Oliver!” Reuben called out.