“Hoist by his own petard…”

William Shakespeare

OUR LADY OF LOURDES HOSPITAL - JULY 15, 2014

Marla’s exit from the conference room was delayed when Montejo grabbed Marla’s wheelchair and attempted to flee with it. It didn't move. She had the wheel locks on. He nearly did a header right over her. A loud noise from the hospital foyer had alerted him. The media crowd surged towards the conference room entry doors, anticipating a sound byte from Colonel Sandino as he, and his men tried to push through the crowd. 

The crowd delayed Sandino’s progress long enough for his quarry, Quinn and Marla, to escape through a service entrance he could see on the other side of the room. He saw Eddie grab Quinn's two-wheeled striker frame from her father, and the two of them disappeared into the service corridor. He didn't see Marla. Maybe she didn't attend. He stopped trying to force his way through the crowd. He slowed down and worked his way forward, excusing himself as he went. His men followed in single file.

Out of sight because she was in her wheelchair, Marla released her brakes. Montejo gave her another shove. This time, it sailed through the double service door. Montejo re-locked the doors, pocketing the key. Sandino had just missed them.

The Colonel strode up and demanded that Montejo re-open the door.” Just a moment," the doctor said and started punching a number into his phone. 

"What are you doing Señor? Open the damned door! Now!" 

"I'm doing that Colonel. But first I need to call one of the cleaners to get the key."

"Use your own damned key!"

"I don't have a key." 

Annoyed, Sandino spun about to shoot the lock out of the door. Phil stepped in front to stop him. Phil wasn’t a big man. Sandino grabbed Phil’s shoulder, shoved him aside, and shot at the lock. 

That didn't work, he missed, so he shot at it again. Flying metal shards caught a photographer next to him, trying for an action shot. The photographer got more door knob than he bargained for, right in the face. He staggered, then fell, blocking the door, hands clutching his face. Blood started dripping through his fingers, then pooling around his head. 

Sandino looked at him in disgust. One of his soldiers dragged the photographer out of the way. Colonel Sandino, after giving directions to his men about how he wanted the media dealt with, stepped over the blood, trying not to put his foot in it, then strode through the doorway, motioning four of his squad to follow him down the service corridor.

Fast Eddie, with Quinn and now Marla, watched as the service elevator doors closed in slow motion. There was nowhere to go. They were trapped in what appeared to be a dead end corridor. They waited, hoping for the doors to close before Sandino could get to them. They could hear footsteps, and voices echoing down the corridor as Sandino approached. The doors were closing but oh, so slowly, tension mounting. Quinn, and Fast Eddie were partially concealed by the instrument panel gable, staring, open-mouthed, and horror-stricken. Sandino ignored them as he approached the elevator. The expanded metal grille was fully closed. The outer doors, upper and lower, had almost sealed the gap.

With a leering grin, the colonel swaggered up to the closing outer doors, Glock cocked and pointed at Marla's defiant visage. He had her! He was suddenly overcome with emotion. He finally had her at point-blank range! At his mercy! He had waited years for this moment. He'd dreamt of it thousands of times. He was shaking. He raised the gun. “Got you, you little bitch!” He had a clear shot.

He squeezed the trigger.

Marla squeezed hers at the same time.

The gun fired. Marla's wheelchair went over backwards in place, as Marla's head snapped back in a spray of blood.

The outer elevator doors banged shut. The lift engaged as Sandino’s diminishing scream reverberated through the receiving dock area. 

Sandino was down. Screaming. Dazed. He couldn't see! HE COULDN'T  SEE!!! The elevator was gone. His head was on fire. WHAT DID THAT BITCH DO TO ME?

His men were bending over him, afraid to touch him. He turned his head toward the sound of their voices, still moaning with pain. He didn't dare open his eyes. They were on fire.

"Here," said one of his men,  "You s-s-s-should wipe your eyes. You have, you have blue gunk in yay, y, your eyes. You need to c-c-c-clean it off..."

“Don’t touch me…!”

’T,T,That stuff needs to c-c-c-come off, s-s-s-sir!”

One of them tried to remove the blue gunk. Sandino reacted violently to the interference. They backed off. “We have to get him back to the conference room at least. You grab his feet, I’ll get the shoulders.”

Sandino tried to speak. "I am?" Not making sense…

"Si, Colonel, you got hit in the face. A piece of the bullet rebounded from the grille. You're lucky you aren't dead or blind, sir. Plus, you have that blue stuff all over your face!"

"What about the girl?" he gasped between shudders, groans and moans.

"We couldn't tell, sir, but she's probably dead. You didn't miss.  But the bullet hit the grille first, not her."

"Bring the elevator back. Get her." They gaped at him. He was writhing on the floor, out of control gasping, and grunting. One of the soldiers pressed the elevator  button. 

"I think we'd better get a doctor here. You don't look too good." Sandino couldn't hear him over his own screams. He writhed on the floor. He was fighting the instinct to wipe the blue goo from his face. He knew he had to keep his hands away from the blue gunk or his hands would spread the blinding pain around to unaffected areas, but he was losing self control fast.

Shortly, the elevator was back, and the outer elevator doors clanged open. They helped Sandino to his feet again. He couldn’t straighten up. His legs kept crumpling as they  attempted to walk, half-drag him to the elevator door. That was pointless. He could not risk opening his eyes. When the slab doors opened, the soldiers could see the hole his slug had made in the heavy diamond mesh. “It's clear from the curled ends of the mesh where it was holed; you hit a strand of metal dead-on with no deflection. There's blood splatter on the far wall, and the food trollies, so it was a through-and-through shot. She has to have a hole right through her head. She’s badly wounded or dying. I’m telling you, sir, if she’s not dead yet, she’s dying. She has a hole right through her head. That's good news. There's a pool of blood on the floor, but not as much as you'd expect. Probably, it's clumped in her hair. There's a bit of metallic glitter on the cage floor, too. Her face must have stopped chunks of the mesh as well as the bullet. She should be easily recognizable from now on, sir." 

'Was her face reduced to a bloody pulp?’ He was talking to himself between gasps, gagging for breath while trying to keep himself from screaming and losing consciousness and not screaming himself hoarse at the same time. He thought he was dying for sure.

They helped Sandino struggle to his feet, but he couldn’t remain standing. He was shaking so hard it took two of them just to keep him from collapsing. "So, she she sh… could be alive is what you're telling me," he gasped, gasping, trying to absorb the breath he inhaled.

"Possibly, sir. but unlikely."

"That girl         has more lives than a cat.       She's alive.       After you get      me to a Ddddoctor,       search every inch      of this      building    until you find her                     or her body."

"Yes, sir!"

Sandino was eventually able to send the two men he didn't need to hold him up to search the upper floors for Marla. He thought fleetingly about going with them on the search, but since he could barely string two coherent thoughts together, and since he was in a hospital, he should have his eyes treated properly, or he might go blind. He might go blind anyway. 'Damn that girl. He could barely think through the white-hot haze of his pain. What the hell is this stuff? Acid? It can't be acid; the gun was a plastic toy...'

He had no trouble recalling that every known person who had been shot with this stuff so far was dead. He resented his wound. In his mind, it was her fault. 'How had he missed that water pistol? It was fluorescent green and orange! Orange, orange, orange,' his mind wandered into the exhaustion of mental drivel. 

He heard voices. People were talking to him. He was dimly aware when a gurney arrived. He was lifted onto it and strapped in. Shaking with rage, and pain as they rolled him to the ER, he could feel himself going into shock. 'What the hell was in that stuff?" He couldn't believe a water pistol could do this much damage. It wasn't right that someone could kill you with a plastic toy and some fluids that were everyday harmless liquids everyone used. There must be something more to it. He felt like his eyes were being stabbed with needles. The sensation pulsed over, and over and over again. He'd never felt such pain. It was all he could do to keep from clawing his eyes out. He knew exactly how those guys in the videos felt. The thugs who had botched Marla’s kidnapping had paid with their lives. Santino had watched the videos of  the kidnappers trying to claw their faces off several times with morbid fascination. Now, here he was trying mightily not to claw his own face off.