Stirred

“Take your seat, sir,” Luther says.

“You go to hell. I want off this bus right now. And I want a refund from Charter Bus USA.”

“Where have you brought us?” someone asks.

“Sit down, sir,” Luther warns again.

Other passengers have begun to stir, a few toward the back also rising to their feet.

The man’s insolence is catching fire, and as he marches up the aisle, Luther estimates that he’ll have a full-blown mutiny on his hands within the minute. He has a gasmask and aerosol canister of QNB—an incapacitating agent—but that’s only for use as a last resort.

Making an example is definitely the smarter, and easier, play.

When the man is three feet away, Luther draws the Glock and shoots him in the face.

As he topples back into the aisle, dousing the first three rows in blood, the noise of the gunshot is instantly surpassed by the screams inside the bus.

Luther steps back, takes the microphone, and speaks in a purposely calm voice he thinks sounds quite similar to the crazed computer, HAL, from that Kubrick film.

“Please stop screaming, everyone, and return to your seats.”

The screaming doesn’t stop.

“Please stop screaming, everyone, and return to your seats.”

A cluster of people toward the back of the bus are forcing their way down the aisle, and a man several rows back is in the throes of a heart attack.

Luther asks nicely for a third time for everyone to return to their seats, and then he shoots a man fumbling for the side window exit lever, and three others for good measure.

Then he calmly repeats his orders.

Through the wisp of gun smoke, he watches everyone scramble back to their seats, frantic to comply as if engaged in a horrific game of musical chairs.

“Very good,” he says. “Very good.”

Luther aims his Glock at a large, mustached man sitting two rows back. He and the obese woman across the aisle from him, at forty-five or fifty, appear to be the youngest of the group.

“What’s your name, sir?”

“Steve.”

Luther tugs the plastic bag out of his pocket and hands it to Steve.

“Collect everyone’s cell phone right now, starting with yours. Ladies and gentlemen, our friend Steve will be coming by to get your cellular devices. In the meantime, I want to see both hands on the seat in front of you. This means everyone. You fail to do it, I shoot you.”

Luther reaches into the driver’s seat and grabs the heavy canvas bag brimming with handcuffs.

He gives it to the nearest passenger, a stern-looking man, completely bald, wearing a Cubs T-shirt.

“Start passing these out. Quickly.” Into the mike, Luther says, “Anyone not wearing handcuffs gets shot.”

“Why are you doing this to us?” a woman cries.

He levels the Glock on her, says, “Come here. Yes, you, right now.” She steps out into the aisle. “Closer.” When she’s six feet away, he orders her to stop. “What’s your name?”

“Lillian. Lillian Slusar.”

“Do you know what a double-tap is, Miss Slusar?”

She shakes her head.

He shows her, the two rapid-fire shots puncturing her heart in less than a second.

No one screams this time, the expressions of horror voiced only as gasps and muffled cries.

“Does anyone else have any more questions for me?” Luther gazes out at the silent, horrified stares. “Excellent.” He still has three rounds in the clip, but he goes ahead and swaps it out for a freshie. “How we coming, Steve-o?”

The burly man has reached the back of the bus.

“I’ve got them all.”

The woman with the bag of handcuffs is halfway to the back.

“Handcuff queen, how we doing?”

“Fine,” she weeps.

“Anyone gives you an ounce of trouble, you just let me know.”

“Yes, sir.”

An eerie silence falls upon the tour bus, no sound but the clink of steel bracelets clamping over wrists.

Steve returns and drops the grocery bag filled with phones of every make and model at Luther’s feet. Then he locks a pair of handcuffs around his own wrists and returns to his seat.

Luther brings the mike to his mouth.

“We have to unload now. We’re going to go two at a time starting at the front of the bus. I’ve prepared some rooms for you. Some even have cots. I don’t want to hurt anyone else, but I hope you understand that I won’t hesitate. There will be no warnings. I won’t ask nicely a second time for you to do what I tell you. If you deviate, in the slightest degree, from my commands, I’ll simply kill you where you stand. Now I know this isn’t exactly the bus tour of America you all signed up for, but I can promise you this…” He smiles wide. “This one is going to be a helluva lot more exciting.”

“All hope abandon, ye who enter in!”

DANTE ALIGHIERI, The Divine Comedy

The fat man’s suit is stained and torn.

He sits on the floor, peering up at Luther, trying to look defiant, but Luther senses the fear coming off him like radiation, and imagines that his chubby fingers—hands bound behind him with zip line—are trembling.

“How are you, Herb?”

The fat man just glares.

“You’re angry with me, that’s fair.”

“Where’s Jack?”

“Jack’s resting. She has a big, big day ahead of her. So do you. And your friends, Harry and Phin.”

“What have you done with her, you son of a bitch?”

“You’ll get a chance to find out firsthand, Herb. Within the next several hours, in fact. You’re an important part of everything that’s about to happen.”

Luther reaches down and lifts a black velvet cloth out of a crumpled paper bag at his feet.

Sets it on the table between them.

“Before we begin, I just want to be clear that I don’t have any desire to get into a conversation with you about why I need to blind you. Only the method.”

He waits for it.

There.

What had been predominately anger and rage in the fat man’s eyes gives way to full-blown terror.

Nice. That was fun.

“Blind me?” Herb asks, his voice dripping with disbelief.

“And you have a choice here, which is the good news.”

Luther opens the velvet cloth, upon which lay an ice pick and a curved needle and thread.

“I’m going to either jam the ice pick into your eyeballs, or stitch your eyelids closed. It’s entirely your call, but if you don’t think you can sit still while I do the suturing, you might need to man up and just go the faster, more permanent route.”

The fat man has begun to sweat, beads dripping off his double chin.

“Is a blindfold an option?”

“Herbert.” Luther says his name like he’s scolding a bad dog. “Just tell me the way you’d like for me to go.”

“Oh…God.” He can see the fat man is fighting to keep it together.

“Choose or I’ll choose for you.”

Herb’s voice is barely a croak. “The needle.”

“Okay,” Luther says, standing. “Now you have to remain very calm. I can’t have you flailing around while I’ve got a needle near your eye. That could be dangerous. I could poke my finger.”

“We’re…doing this…now?”

“Right now.”

Luther kneels down, picking up the surgeon’s suture.

“Now, I want you to start practicing,” Luther says.

“Practicing what?”

Luther sits down on the table and raises the needle, a twelve-inch length of black thread dangling from the eye.