Snakehead

puddles. There was a flicker of lightning, and for a couple of seconds he saw the rain forest, black and impenetrable. It seemed to have moved closer, as if it was trying to swallow him up.
    Later, somehow, he slept. He didn’t take off any of his clothes. He couldn’t bear to. He simply lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
    When he opened them again, the first light of the morning was already slanting in. His clothes felt damp. His muscles ached. He lifted his wrist and examined the watch. The two hands were still set at eleven o’clock.
    Almost twenty-four hours had passed since he had called for help. He listened to the world outside. The harsh cry of some sort of bird. The rustle of the grasshoppers. The last drip of the water as it fell from the branches. There was nobody out there. MI6 hadn’t arrived yet, and Alex couldn’t fool himself any longer. Something had gone wrong. The watch wasn’t working. They never were going to come.

18
    DEAD OF NIGHT
    T WO DAYS LATER, IN the afternoon, the Piper Super Cub returned.
    By now, Alex had fallen into a strange mood and one that he could barely understand. It was almost as if he had accepted his fate and could no longer find the strength or even the desire to escape it. He had met the two other women working at the hospital: Nurse Swaine and Nurse Wilcox, who had proudly told him that she would be his anesthetist. Nobody had been unkind to him. In a way, that was what made it all so nightmarish. They were always checking that he had food and water. Would he like something to read? Would he like to listen to some music? Soon, the very sound of their voices made his skin crawl, but he couldn’t break free of the feeling that they owned him and always would.
    But he hadn’t given up completely. He was still searching for a way out of this hideous trap. The river was impossible. There were no boats; nothing that would pass as a boat. He had followed the fence all the way around. There were no gaps, no convenient overhanging branches. He had considered blowing a hole in it. He still had the one coin that Smithers had given him. But the fence was connected to an electrical circuit. The guards would know instantly what he had done, and without a map, a compass, or a machete, Alex doubted he would be able to find a way through the rain forest.
    He thought about sending a radio message. He had seen the radio room in the administration building…it was neither locked nor guarded. He soon realized why. The radio transmitter was connected to a numeric keypad. You had to punch in a code to activate it. Major Yu really had thought of everything.
    Alex watched as the plane hit the surface of the lake and began a slow, lazy turn toward the jetty. He had been expecting it. Dr. Tanner had told him it would be coming the night before.
    “It’s your first customer, Alex,” he had said cheerfully. “A man called R. V. Weinberg. You may have heard of him.”
    As usual, Alex said nothing.
    “He’s a reality TV producer from Miami. Very successful. But he’s contracted a serious eye disease, and he needs two transplants. So it looks as if we’ll be starting with your corneas. We’ll operate first thing tomorrow morning.”
    Alex examined the American from a distance as he was helped out of the plane. Dr. Tanner had warned him not to approach or try to speak to the “customer.” It was one of the house rules. But looking at him, Alex found himself filled with more hatred than he had ever felt for any human being.
    Weinberg was overweight in a soft, flabby way. He had curling gray hair and a face that could have been made of putty, with sagging cheeks and jowls. He was a millionaire, but he dressed shabbily, his gut pressing against his Lacoste shirt. But it wasn’t just his appearance that disgusted Alex. It was his selfishness, his complete lack of heart. Tomorrow Alex would be blind. This man would take his sight without thinking about it simply because it was what he wanted and he had the money to pay for it. Major Yu, Dr. Tanner, and the nurses were evil in their own way. But Weinberg, the successful businessman from Miami, made him physically sick.
    He waited until the man had disappeared into the house that had been prepared for him, then walked down to the edge of the lake. So this was it. He had just one night to make his escape. After that it really would be impossible.
    But the anger that Alex had felt had broken through his sense of helplessness. It had