“Anybody see you come in?”
“Nobody except the guard. I didn’t exactly come in the front door.”
“Then I can pretend to knock you out, get out of here on my own. They know I’m a crazy SOB. Kill my own brother and never think twice about it.”
“Bullshit. That dog just won’t hunt, Rufus. You wouldn’t even know where the hell to go. They’d catch your butt in ten minutes. I worked on repairs at this hospital for almost two years, know it like the back of my hand. Way I came in is supposed to be locked, only the nurses taped over the lock. They sneak their smokes out there.”
“How you wanta work it, then?”
“We just go back out the way I came in. It’s right down the hall on the left. Don’t pass no nurses’ station or nothing. My truck’s right outside the door. I got a buddy thirty minutes from here. He owes me a favor. I’ll leave my truck in one of his old barns and borrow his rig for a while. He won’t ask no questions and he won’t answer any if the police come along. We hit the road and don’t look back.”
“You sure you want to do this? How about your kids?”
“They all gone. Don’t see ’em much.”
“What about Louise?”
Josh looked down for a moment. “Louise walked out the door five years ago and I ain’t seen her since.”
“You never told me that!”
“What you gonna do about it if I had?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m damn sorry about a lot of things. I ain’t the easiest person to live with. Can’t say I blame any of them.” Josh shrugged his shoulders. “So it’s just the two of us again. Make Momma happy if she was alive.”
“You sure?”
“Don’t ask me that again, Rufus.”
Rufus raised his manacled hands. “What about these?”
His brother was already sliding something out of his boot. When he straightened back up he was holding a slender piece of metal with a slight hook at one end.
“Don’t tell me that boy didn’t search you?”
“Shit, like he knew where to look. Once he took my pocketknife, he figured he had all my dangerous weapons. Didn’t even bother to do my boots.” Josh grinned and then inserted the metal in the lock on the restraints.
“You think you can pick it?”
Josh stopped and looked at his brother with contempt. “If I can escape from the damn Viet Cong, I can sure as hell pick an Army-issued pair of handcuffs.”
* * *
Out in the hallway, Private Brown looked at his watch. The ten minutes were up. He cracked open the door to the room. “All right, Harms, time’s up.” He pushed the door open farther. “Mr. Harms? Did you hear me? Time’s up.”
Brown heard a small groan. He drew his pistol and pushed the door all the way open. “What’s going on in here?”
The groaning became louder. Brown looked around for the light switch. That’s when he stumbled over something. He knelt down and touched the man’s face as his vision focused.
“Mr. Harms? Mr. Harms, you okay?”
Josh opened his eyes. “I’m fine. How ’bout you?”
Then a big hand clamped down on Brown’s gun and stripped it clean away. The other hand went around his mouth and he was lifted completely off the floor, one massive fist colliding with his jaw and knocking him out.
Rufus put Brown in the bed, covering him with the sheet. Josh put the restraints around the unconscious soldier’s arms and legs and locked them up tight. Then he used adhesive tape and gauze he found in one of the cabinets to tape his mouth shut. The last thing he did was search the soldier and retrieve his pocketknife.
As Josh turned toward him, Rufus wrapped his arms around his brother and squeezed tight. Josh returned the hug, the first time the men had been able to do this in twenty-five years. His eyes moist, Rufus shook a little as Josh finally pulled away.
“Now, don’t get too mushy on me. We ain’t got no time for that.”
Rufus smiled. “Still feels good to hold you, Josh.”