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CHAPTER 126
DEAR FRIENDS, I must admit I’m enjoying myself, especially because the drumming of rain on the orphanage has become a comfort, deadening everything, focusing everything on the delights of my final interlude: a mother, a son, an old friend, the anticipation of death.
But then I check my watch and say, “When exactly do you think they will be here?”
“Who?” Mattie asks.
I put on one of the bulletproof vests, replying, “Whoever you called to come and rescue you.”
“We called no one. We did what you told us; now let us go.”
“Liar,” I say. “You brought big Herr Burkhart when I told you not to. So you must have told someone else what was going on.”
“We didn’t,” Mattie says. “I’m telling you we didn’t.”
I stare at her for several long moments.
I suppose it’s possible. But highly unlikely. I check my watch again.
She’s been out of her car for roughly twenty minutes. I’ve got at least twenty more to play before clearing the premises.
But I want to be sure, and quickly.
I go to my pack and find a device I picked up just the other day.
I turn around with it in my hand, the tip just showing. I wave it at her.
“What is that?” she says.
“It’s too bad we don’t have much time,” I say. “I do so like to let these things unfold at their leisure.”
Mattie starts to squirm and it makes me excited. She has no idea what I’ve got. Isn’t that the big, big fear? The unknown? Human brains can’t handle the unknown. Do you know why?
Because their imagination always comes up with something worse.
At last, I open my hand and show her the device.
“It was developed for mountaineers who needed to light fires in high winds,” I say. “They call it a pocket torch. I bought it last week. Handy.”
I click on the starter. There’s a snapping noise and then a thin, intense flame bursts from a tube.
“Twenty-four hundred degrees,” I say, enjoying the terror flaring in Mattie’s face. “The fear of it is primal, isn’t it? Fire? You know, I’ve always found that when all else fails, the fear of having an eye melted usually makes people talk.”
CHAPTER 127
THUNDER BROKE WITHIN several hundred yards of the orphanage, and the lightning flash made the room brighter than day, but all Mattie could see was that evil flame hissing out the nozzle of the pocket torch.
“No!” Niklas screamed. “Don’t! Please!”
Time seemed to slow for Mattie. She was acutely aware of Falk drifting behind her right side where she could not kick at him. She gritted her teeth and twisted her head.
Then, like a delirious whisper coming from another dimension, she heard Burkhart talking in her ear. “Engel. Mattie. I’ve been hit t
wice out behind the orphanage. Left forearm through and through. Tourniqueted. Left thigh. Broken femur. I’ve got a belt on it too. I can’t find my cell phone because I can’t move, Mattie. I can’t come for you and Ilona and Niklas.”
Burkhart began to choke bitterly. “I can’t save you.”
He got hold of himself. “If you can hear me, don’t give up. Prolong whatever nightmare he’s taken you into. Fight. There are people who love you, Mattie. I…I love you. You’re beautiful. And brave. And smart. And tough. And your kid is the greatest. Keep fighting until they can get to you. Keep fighting.”
