The Key to Midnight

nightstand.
        The man in the mask fired the gas-pellet gun. Soft, waxy bullets struck Alex and disintegrated on impact, expelling clouds of sweet fumes.
        He picked up the 9mm pistol, but before he could use it, the world dissolved in whirling white clouds, as though the blizzard beyond the windows had swept inside.

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    60
        
        In the front room of the suite, Ignacio Carrera and Antonio Paz loaded the luggage into the bottoms of two large hotel laundry carts. Then they placed Alex Hunter and Joanna Rand into the carts, on top of the suitcases.
        To Carrera, the woman was even more beautiful than she appeared in photographs. If the gas could have been counted upon to keep her unconscious more than just another half hour, he would have undressed her and raped her here, now. Helplessly asleep, she would be warm and exquisitely pliant. But he didn't have time for fun just yet.
        Carrera had brought two pieces of Hermes leather luggage with him. They belonged to the fat man. He put them in the bedroom.
        Tomorrow, the day clerk would secretly alter the registration card. It would appear that Anson Peterson had checked in on Sunday. There would be no record of Hunter and the woman: They would simply have ceased to exist.
        Paz covered the unconscious couple with towels and rumpled bed linens.
        They wheeled the carts to the service elevator and rode down to ground level without encountering anyone.

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    61
        
        When Alex regained consciousness, he wished he hadn't. He tasted bile. His vision was blurry and tinted red, as if his eyes were full of blood. A demon donkey was inside his head, kicking to get out.
        At least he was alive. Which was inexplicable. They had no use for him - only for Joanna - and should have wasted him by now.
        He was lying on his left side on a white-and-black tile floor. A kitchen. A light glowed above the stove.
        His back was against a row of cabinets, and his hands were tied behind him. Good, heavy cord. His feet were also bound together.
        Joanna wasn't with him. He called her name softly but received no reply.
        He despised himself for letting them take her so easily. In his own defense, he could only argue that no one could have expected such a bold assault in a busy hotel and only minutes after their arrival.
        He listened for movement or voices in another room. Nothing. Silence.
        Knowing the restraints wouldn't break or come loose easily, nevertheless hoping for a bit of luck, he tried to jerk his wrists apart. Incredibly, impossibly, the rope snapped on the third try.
        Stunned, he lay motionless, listening and wondering.
        Deep silence.
        Fear sharpened his senses, and he was able to smell items that were shut away in the cupboards: cloves of garlic, soap, a pungent cheese.
        Finally he brought his hands out from behind his back. The broken rope was loosely draped around his wrists. He pulled it off.
        He scooted around on the shiny tile floor until he was sitting with his back to the cabinets. He untied the rope at his ankles, threw it aside, and got to his feet.
        His skull seemed to be cracking under the punishing hooves of the indefatigable donkey. His vision dimmed-brightened-dimmed in a dependable rhythm, but gradually the red tint was fading.
        He picked up the length of rope that had been around his hands and took it to the stove. Examining it under the small fluorescent light, he saw why he'd been able to snap it with so little effort: While he'd been unconscious, someone had cut most of the way through the line, leaving only a fraction of the diameter intact.
        Manipulated. Programmed.
        He had the uncanny conviction that everything that was going to happen during the next few hours had been planned a long time ago.
        But by whom? And why?
        He wondered if he and Joanna would be the winners or the losers of the game.

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    62
        
        Joanna woke with a vile taste, swimming vision, and a fierce headache. When she began to be able to see, she discovered that she was in a hospital bed in a white room with a high window: the familiar setting of her nightmare. An electroencephalograph, an electrocardiograph, and other machines stood nearby, but she wasn't connected to them. The air reeked of a melange of disinfectants.
        Initially she thought that she was