Gone Tomorrow

He chose to be good. He went into a crouch and raised his hands in a small abbreviated gesture of surrender. I hefted the pry bar in my left hand and straight-armed the guy onward toward the head of the stairs. He was meek all the way down to the basement. He gave me no trouble on the way through the office room. Then we got to the second room and he saw the three guys on the floor and sensed what was in store for him. He tensed up. Adrenaline kicked in. Fight or flight. Then he looked at me again, a huge determined man in ludicrous shoes, holding a big metal bar.
    He went quiet.
    I asked him, “Do you know the combinations for the cells?”
    He said, “No.”
    “So how do you give painkiller injections?”
    “Through the bars.”
    “What happens if someone has a seizure and you can’t get in the cell?”
    “I have to call.”
    “Where is your equipment?”
    “In my locker.”
    “Show me,” I said. “Open it.”
    We went back to the anteroom and he led me to a locker and spun the combination dial. The door swung open. I asked him, “Can you open any of the other cabinets?”
    He said, “No, just this one.”
    His locker had a bunch of shelves inside, piled high with all kinds of medical stuff. Wrapped syringes, a stethoscope, small phials of colorless liquids, packs of cotton balls, pills, bandages, gauze, tape.
    Plus a shallow box of tiny nitrogen capsules.
    And a box of wrapped darts.
    Which made some kind of bureaucratic sense. I imagined the management conference back when they were writing the operations manual. The Pentagon. Staff officers in charge. Some junior ranks present. An agenda. Some DoD counsel insisting that the dart gun’s ammunition be held by a qualified medical officer. Because anesthetic was a drug. And so on and so forth. Then some other active-duty type saying that compressed nitrogen wasn’t medical. A third guy pointing out it made no sense at all to keep the propellant separate from the load. Around and around. I imagined exasperated agents eventually giving up and giving in. OK, whatever, let’s move on .
    I asked, “What exactly is in the darts?”
    The guy said, “Local anesthetic to help the wound site, plus a lot of barbiturate.”
    “How much barbiturate?”
    “Enough.”
    “For a gorilla?”
    The guy shook his head. “Reduced dose. Calculated for a normal human.”
    “Who did the calculation?”
    “The manufacturer.”
    “Knowing what it was for?”
    “Of course.”
    “With specifications and purchase orders and everything?”
    “Yes.”
    “And tests?”
    “Down at Guantánamo.”
    “Is this a great country, or what?”
    The guy said nothing.
    I asked him, “Are there side effects?”
    “None.”
    “You sure? You know why I’m asking, right?”
    The guy nodded. He knew why I was asking. I was fresh out of computer cords, so I had to keep half an eye on him while I found the gun and loaded it. Loading it was a jigsaw puzzle. I wasn’t familiar with the technology. I had to proceed on common sense and logic alone. Clearly the trigger mechanism tripped the gas release. Clearly the gas propelled the dart. But guns are basically simple machines. They have fronts and backs. Cause and effect happens in a rational sequence. I got the thing charged up inside forty seconds.
    I said, “You want to lie down on the floor?”
    The guy didn’t answer.
    I said, “You know, to save bumping your head.”
    The guy got down on the floor.
    I asked him, “Any preference as to where? Arm? Leg?”
    He said, “It works best into muscle mass.”
    “So roll over.”
    He rolled over and I shot him in the ass.
    I reloaded the thing twice more and put darts into the two agents that were liable to wake up. Which gave me at least an eight-hour margin, unless there were other unanticipated arrivals on the horizon. Or unless the agents were supposed to call in with status checks every hour. Or unless there was a car already on its way to take us back to D.C. Which conflicting thoughts made me feel half-relaxed and half-urgent. I carried the pry bar through to the cell block. Jacob Mark looked at me and said nothing. Theresa Lee looked at me and said, “They sell shoes like that on Eighth Street now?”
    I didn’t answer. Just stepped around to the back of her cell and jammed the flat end of the pry bar under the bottom of the structure. Then I leaned my weight on the bar and felt the whole thing move, just a little. Just a fraction of an inch. Not much more than the