As I expected, long metal tracks line the ceiling, receding into the distance, where targets with human figures printed on them hang against a wall of bullet-pocked railroad ties. Three targets show Muslim terrorists with red crescents painted on their checked keffiyehs. Two more show the famous “running nigger” from the 1960s: a cartoonish silhouette of a black man with an Afro haircut, running in profile, with red target dots printed on his kneecaps, his buttocks, his chest, his mouth, and his temple.
Halfway to the far wall sit the two boxes brought by the professional guards, as though awaiting disposal. A few feet away from me sits an odd collection of equipment, so carefully laid out that it must have been brought here for us: a large chrome fire extinguisher; a thick roll of Visqueen; a red plastic bucket; and, strangest of all, what looks like some sort of man-portable welding system, with two gas cylinders on a frame, connected to a woven hose and a pipe. Beside this antique-looking apparatus I see the legs of Royal and Regan, who seem to be staring at Caitlin.
As I try to divine the purpose of the equipment, Regan takes a couple of steps toward me and kicks me savagely in the ribs. Air explodes from my throat as something cracks in my side.
“He’s awake now.”
“Then let’s find out where we stand and get this done,” Brody says. “Suit up, Randall.”
Regan hands Brody his pistol, then walks to the eerily familiar contraption on the floor. Slipping his arm through one khaki strap, he shoulders the horizontal cylinders like a backpack, then settles the thing squarely on his frame. It actually looks like some sort of antique scuba rig, but instinct tells me its purpose is to end life, not to preserve it.
“Recognize that?” Royal asks, as I finally guess what Regan is wearing. “It’s a Flammenwerfer 41. Kraut flamethrower. Excellent unit, like most German-engineered gear. Shoots a mixture of oil and tar. The combination comes out a lot like napalm.”
To my amazement, Brody seems to have patched his neck wound with duct tape, though I remember him saying something about superglue. “As a point of interest,” he goes on, “this is the very weapon we used on Albert Norris. It’s a bit heavy for me now, so I’m going to let Randall do the preliminary work.”
Henry Sexton’s description of Norris’s awful death comes back to me in a rush, triggering a cold sweat from head to toe. Caitlin’s eyes beseech mine, searching for a sign of hope, but I can’t summon any.
Royal turns a valve on the back of the unit, then taps one of the cylinders twice and says, “Light up the jet pipe, Randall.”
When Regan pulls a trigger on a striker unit, the basement fills with a sound that starts my bowels roiling. It’s a hiss blended with a soft roar, the sound of liquid fire waiting to be unleashed. At the end of the firing pipe in Regan’s hand, a deep blue jet with an orange core glows like the key to hell.
“Hydrogen pilot flame,” says Royal, taking a pack of Camel cigarettes from his pocket and shaking one loose. As if replaying an old routine, Regan holds up the jet pipe and Brody leans down over the hissing flame with the Camel in his mouth. He draws on the cigarette once, puffing blue smoke, then straightens up and takes a long drag.
“Best damned cigarette lighter in the world. Ask any Wehrmacht veteran. Singe off your eyebrows, though, if you’re not careful.”
“Let’s do it,” Regan says.
“Wait,” says Brody, picking up the paper bag from in the gun room and dumping our cell phones into the red bucket. Then he removes the microcassette from the recorder we used to make my copy. “A little demonstration.” After dropping the crumpled bag into the bucket, he carries it downrange and sets it atop the two banker’s boxes.
An involuntary whimper comes from Caitlin’s throat.
Regan laughs.
“Aim low,” Brody tells him, taking care to stay near the wall as he walks back to us. “I switched off the fire alarms. You don’t want to burn the goddamn house down.”
Bracing the pipe against his hip, Regan pulls the trigger.
A blast of flame reaches downrange like the hand of Lucifer. In less than three seconds, the ravenous fire devours the bucket and its contents like a campfire eating a paper cup, and the smell of burnt plastic joins that of gasoline and tar. When the flame vanishes, what remains is a red puddle on the burning boxes. Half the oxygen seems to have been sucked from the tunnel.
“So much for your evidence,” Brody says.
Acrid black petroleum smoke is gathering beneath the ceiling like a fog, but he appears unconcerned. “Don’t worry, this place has OSHA-grade air handlers and a world-class sprinkler system.”