I could not help but glance out windows whenever I could, and wonder about my comrades. At not quite three P.m., his organs failed him like followers that suddenly aren’t interested anymore. Joel Hand died without a gesture or sound as cold water ran in small rivers across the room.
“I need ice and I need more drugs,” I looked up and said.
“Then what?” Bear came closer.
“Then at some point you need to get him to a hospital.”
No one responded.
“If you don’t give me these things I’ve requested, I can do nothing more for him,” I flatly stated.
Bear went over to a desk and got on the hostage phone.
He said we needed ice and more drugs. I knew Lucy and her team had better act now or I probably would be shot.
I moved away from Hand’s spreading puddle, and as I looked at his face it was hard for me to believe that he had so much power over others. But every man in this room and those in the reactor and on the barge would kill for him. In fact, they already had.
“The robot’s bringing the shit. I’m going out to get it,” said Bear as he looked out the window. “It’s on its way now.
“You go out there you’re probably going to get your ass shot off.”
“Not with her in here,” Bear’s eyes were hostile and crazed.
“The robot can bring it to you,” I surprised them by saying.
Bear laughed. “You remember all those stairs’? You think that tin-ass piece of shit’s going to get up those?”
“It’s perfectly capable,” I said, and I hoped this was true.
“Hey, make it bring the stuff in so no one has to go out,” another man said.
Bear got Wesley on the hostage phone again. “Make the robot bring the supplies to the control room. We’re not coming out.” He slammed the receiver down, not realizing what he had just done.
I thought of my niece and said a prayer for her because I knew this would be her hardest challenge. I jumped as I suddenly felt the barrel of a gun against the back of my neck.
“You let him die, you’re dead, too. You got that, bitch?”
I did not move.
“Pretty soon, we got to sail out of here, and he’d better be going with us.”
“As long as you keep me in supplies, I will keep him alive,” I quietly said.
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.