He removed the gun from my neck and I injected the last vial of saline into their dead leader's IV line. Beads of sweat were rolling down my back, and the skirt of the gown I had put over my clothes was soaked. I imagined Lucy this minute outside the mobile outpost in her virtual reality gear. I imagined her moving her fingers and arms and stepping here and there as fiber optics made it possible for her to read every inch of the terrain on her CRTs. Her telepresence was the only hope that Toto would not get stuck in a corner or fall somewhere.
The men were looking out the window and commented when the robot's tracks carried him up the handicap ramp and he went inside.
"I wouldn't mind having one of those," one of them said.
"You're too stupid to figure out how to use it."
"No way. That baby ain't radio-controlled. Nothing radio-controlled would work in here. You got any idea how thick the walls are?"
"It'd be great for carrying in firewood when the weather sucks."
"Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom," one of the hostages timidly said.
"Shit. Not again."
My tension got unbearable as I feared what would happen if they went out and were not back when Toto appeared.
"Hey, just make him wait. Damn, I wish we could close these windows. It's cold as shit in here."
"Well, you won't get none of that clean, cold air in Tripoli. Better enjoy it while you can."
Several of them laughed at the same time the door opened and another man walked in who I had not seen before. He was dark-skinned and bearded, wearing a heavy jacket and fatigues, and he was angry.
"We have only fifteen assemblies out and in casks on the barge," he spoke with authority and a heavy accent.
"You must give us more time. Then we can get more."
"Fifteen's a hell of a lot," Bear said, and he did not seem to care for this man.
"We need twenty-five assemblies at the very least! That was the arrangement."
"No one's told me that."
"He knows that." The man with the accent looked at Hand's body on the floor.
"Well, he ain't available to discuss it with you." Bear crushed out a cigarette with the toe of his boot.
"Do you understand?" The foreign man was furious now. "Each assembly weighs a ton, and the crane has to pull it from the flooded reactor to the pool, then get it into a cask. It is very slow and very difficult. It is very dangerous. You promised we would have at least twenty-five.
Now you are rushing and sloppy because of him." The man angrily pointed at Hand. "We have an agreement!"
"My only agreement is to take care of him. We gotta get him on the barge and take the doctor with us. Then we get him to a hospital."
"This is nonsense! He looks already dead to me! You are lunatics"
"He's not dead."
"Look at him. He is white as snow and does not breathe.
He is dead!"
They were screaming at each other, and Bear's boots were loud as he strode over to me and demanded, "He's not dead, is he?"
"No," I said.
Sweat rolled down his face as he drew the pistol from his belt and pointed it first at me. Then he pointed it at the hostages, and all of them cowered and one began to cry.
"No, please. Oh please," a man begged.
"Who is it who needs to use the john so bad?" Bear roared.
They were silent, shaking as hoods sucked in and out and wide eyes stared.
"Was it you?" The gun pointed at someone else.
The control room door had been left open, and I could hear the whirring of Toto down the hall. He had made it up the stairs and along a catwalk, and he would be here in seconds. I retrieved a long metal flashlight that had been designed by ERF and tucked into the medical chest by my niece.
"Shit, I want to know if he's dead," one of the men said, and I knew my charade was over.
"I'll show you," I said as the whirring got louder.
I pointed the flashlight at Bear as I pushed a button, and he shrieked at the dazzling pop as he grabbed his eyes and I swung the heavy flashlight like a baseball bat. Bones shattered in his wrist, the pistol clattering to the floor, and the robot rolled in empty-handed. I flung myself down flat on my face, covering my eyes and ears as best I could, and the room exploded in blazing white light as a concussion bomb blew off the top of Toto's head. There was screaming and cursing as terrorists blindly fell against consoles and each other, and they could not hear or see when dozens of HRT agents stormed in.
"Freeze, motherfuckers!"
"Freeze or I'm gonna blow your motherfucking brains out! "
"Don't anybody move!"
I did not budge in Joel Hand's icy grave as helicopters shook windows and feet of fast-roping agents kicked in screens. Handcuffs snapped, and weapons clattered across the floor as they were kicked out of the way. I heard people crying and realized they were the hostages being taken away.
"It's all right. You're safe now."
"Oh my God. Oh thank you, God."
"Come on. We need to get you on out of here."
When I finally felt a cool hand on the side of my neck I realized the person was checking for vital signs because I looked dead.
"Aunt Kay?" It was Lucy's strained voice.
I turned over and slowly sat up. My hands and the side of my face that had been in water were numb, and I looked around, dazed. I was shaking so badly my teeth were chattering as she squatted beside me, gun in hand. Her eyes roamed the room as other agents in black fatigues were taking the last prisoners out.
"Come on, let me help you up," she said.
She gave me her hand, and my muscles trembled as if I were about to have a seizure. I could not get warm, and my ears would not stop ringing. When I was standing, I could see Toto near the door. His eye had been scorched, his head blackened, the domed top of it gone. He was silent in his cold trail of fiber optic cable, and no one paid him any mind as one by one all of the New Zionists were taken away.
Lucy looked down at the cold body on the floor, at the water and IV, the syringes and empty bags of saline.
"God," she said.
"Is it safe to go out?" I had tears in my eyes.
"We've just now taken control of the containment area, and took the barge the same time we took the control room.
Several of them had to be shot because they wouldn't drop their weapons. Marino got one in the parking lot."
"He shot one of them?"
"He had to," she said. "We think we got everyone-I guess about thirty-but we're still being careful. This place is wired with explosives, come on. Are you able to walk?"
"Of course I am."
I untied my soaked gown and yanked it off because I could not stand it anymore. Tossing it on the floor, I pulled off gloves and we walked quickly out of the control room.
She snatched her radio off her belt and her boots were loud on the catwalk and the stairs Toto had maneuvered so well.
"Unit one-twenty to mobile unit one," she said.
"One."
"We're clearing out now. Everything secure?"
"You got the package?" I recognized Benton Wesley's voice.
"Ten-four. Package is a-okay."
"Thank God," came a reply unusually emotional for the radio. "Tell the package we're waiting."
"Ten-four, sir," Lucy said. "I believe the package knows."
We walked fast beyond bodies and old blood and turned in to a lobby that could not keep anyone in or out anymore.
She pulled open a glass door, and the afternoon was so bright I had to shield my eyes. I did not know where to go and felt very unsteady on my feet.
"Watch the steps." Lucy put an arm around my waist.
"Aunt Kay," she said. "Just hold on to me."
####
Patricia Cornwell, Cause of Death
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