Scorpion Trail

by Geoffrey Archer

He reached the top floor, then a spur of stairs took him to a fire exit on the roof. A push on the bar and he was out onto flat asphalt, edged with a low wall.

  He was at one end of the hospital now. Looking back towards the middle of the building he saw a square brick construction that he guessed must house the winding gear for the lifts. Next to it were the ventilation fans.

  His heart pounded from the exertion of running up the stairs – and with fear. He stood there bemused, half expecting to see the killer doing something with the machinery, though he had no idea what.

  Anthrax. Was it a liquid? A gas? A box full of microbes? He’d assumed it would have to be fed into the air supply, but he didn’t know. Guessing. In the same way he was guessing Pravic would be here and not Munich.

  Overhead a 747 climbed noisily out of Rhein-Main, heading east. From somewhere below, the siren of an arriving ambulance. Alex felt ridiculous suddenly. Here he was playing the sleuth without even the humblest qualification for the job.

  ‘It’s only in the movies that they end with a roof chase . . .’ he reminded himself.

  Now what? Better check since he was here. Awkwardly, feeling as if some hidden eye were watching him, he began to walk towards the fans.

  He felt absurdly exposed. If Pravic was here, and he still had his gun, there’d be nowhere to hide.

  The technical manager at the Universitätsklinik Sembach had his office on the ground floor. It was an untidy room cluttered with filing cabinets, and on the wall behind his desk was a board from which hung the keys to all the maintenance spaces in the building.

  He stared quizzically at the man hovering near the door, whose blue overalls were so crisp they could have been bought that morning. The surprise visitor carried a toolbag, seemed to be sweating a lot, and had just announced that he’d come to test the fire dampers.

  Milan Pravic had never been good at bluff, but this time it had to work. The last thing he wanted was to have to use the gun and alert the whole place to his presence. The man behind the desk was the same technician who’d organized the handover when the constructors finished building the hospital twenty-six months before.

  The manager tapped a pen on the desk. He’d not been expecting this visit, but it was perfectly normal to have random checks on the system that closed the ventilation in the event of a fire. And even though the man claimed to have left his I.D. card at home, he distinctly remembered his face.

  He plucked a bunch of keys from the panel behind him and held them out. Pravic grabbed them, grunted his thanks, then walked briskly back to the main entrance lobby.

  Lucky so far.

  Now he had to find the girl. The TV and the papers hadn’t revealed which ward she was in, and it wasn’t a question he could easily ask.

  Using the main stairs by the lift lobby, he ascended floor by floor, peering into each main corridor looking for signs. On the fourth he found them. Two policemen, chatting. Outside a ward.

  His neck prickled at the thought of being so close, the same way it had in Pfefferheim. She was the last. The end of the line. With Vildana Muminovic dead, Tulici could breed no more monsters to torment him.

  His nights were still haunted by his childhood terror of that place. Living half a kilometre away on the same side of the valley, he’d walked through Tulici every day to reach his school. An undersized runt of a boy, a misfit even amongst his own, he’d been picked on by the youngsters there. Frail for a teenager, he’d been mocked for his weediness and skulking ways. Once, three boys and three girls had taken him to a cow barn, stripped him, rolled his hairless body in slurry, mocked his immature genitalia and urinated on his face.

  One final score to settle and Tulici would have paid the price.

  The chief administrator of the Universitätsklinik was in his thirties, chubby-faced, wearing a shiny, grey suit and spectacles with fashionable, bright-red frames. He listened to Lorna with an expression of growing disbelief. One of the police officers stood watchfully by the door.

  ‘My English is not so good,’ he responded when she’d finished. ‘You tell me the name Kommissar Linz. He I know. So you telephone him, and then I will speak.’ He pushed a phone across the desk.

  ‘Good,’ Lorna sighed. Sense at last.

  She dialled the number. Linz replied within seconds from his car on the autobahn heading south. Lorna talked for two minutes, listened for less, then handed the phone back to the man with red spectacles.

  Linz had heard her story without comment. He’d told her he would call the Hessen police for reinforcements and head for the hospital himself. Lorna almost wept that he’d taken her so seriously.

  The administrator’s cheeks seemed to sag as he listened to Linz’s voice. He pulled off his glasses and wiped sweat from his eyes with a handkerchief.

  ‘Ja, ist gut, Herr Kommissar. Machen wir.’ He put the phone down. ‘He say we must search the hospital,’ he explained.

  The policeman by the door told him they’d have a hard job, with only four officers on duty. The administrator scratched his head, grabbed the phone again and dialled an internal number.

  ‘Könnten Sie bitte sofort hierherkommen?’ he asked. He listened for the acknowledgement, then replaced the receiver. ‘The technical manager,’ he explained sombrely. ‘He will come.’

  He flopped back in his chair and puffed out his cheeks. His carefully brushed hair looked ruffled.

  ‘This cannot be true,’ he gabbled. ‘I have three-hundred-and-eighty ill peoples here.’

  Up on the roof, Alex stepped warily behind the whirring fans. Nobody here and no sign of anything being tampered with. Daft. He’d been jumping to conclusions. The wrong ones. He began to suspect Pravic was miles away.

  Hang on . . . If fresh air was sucked in here it had to be pumped to the wards through ducts, which probably passed into the building via the lift shaft, judging by the location of the fans. Better head down again. There was more to check if he was to be sure.

  A fire door identical to the one at the far end of the roof opened when he pulled it. Back on the main staircase, he descended to the fourth floor. Vildana’s floor.

  He emerged into the lift lobby, from which the ward corridors stretched in two directions. Beside him were the double doors of the elevators. His eye was caught momentarily by a maintenance man in blue overalls opening what looked like a broom cupboard on the far side of the lobby. At his feet was a tool bag. Alex looked away, stepping forward to see along the corridor to ward 4F. Still there, the two policemen. Looking bored.

  Maintenance man? Jesus! He was a couple of steps from the cupboard. The man had opened the door and was disappearing into it.

  Couldn’t be Pravic, though. This man had dark hair.

  Then the man turned to check no one was watching . . .

  Their eyes met, this time. And locked. The killer’s eyes. Fear washed over him, such as he’d never felt before.

  The cold, pale eyes of the Scorpion.

  Pravic froze. The face opposite was familiar. Dangerously so. Images of the Pfefferheim pavement forty-eight hours before. A man with a beard, running after the car. He recognized him.

  In a second he propelled himself from the doorway, just as Alex turned to shout the alarm, jerked the pistol from his overalls and pressed its barrel into Alex’s chest, throwing a hand over his mouth.

  ‘Komm mit!’ he growled, wrestling him towards the maintenance room. Alex struggled, but a sharp prod from the barrel quietened him. Pravic shoved him inside, followed, then pulled the door shut.

  ‘Du sags nix, Du machs nix!’ The voice hoarse, the gun barrel jabbing. He pointed to the ground and told him to sit.

  Pravic stared hard at the hunched figure on the floor, as if the intensity of his look might penetrate the man’s mind. Who was he? Why was he here? Was he the man who had adopted the girl?

  What to do with him, that was the question . . . Couldn’t let him live. But a gunshot would give him away . . . Best to beat his head to pulp, maybe. He turned the pist
ol in his hand . . .

  Alex felt the bare concrete cold beneath his backside, his heart thudding, his head slumped. Avoid eye contact. The words a mantra, like at the ambush in the canyon. Nothing else to cling to. But he sensed Pravic’s intentions, cringed in anticipation of the blow.

  He waited. Then he inched his stare up from the floor. Saw the grubby black combat boots beneath the blue trouser legs. Took in the tight confines of the maintenance space, two metres wide and a metre deep. Blinked in the glare from the bare bulb in the ceiling.

  Pravic relented. There’d be noise if he beat the man. He’d keep him cowed. Less of a risk.

  He transferred the gun to his left hand, backing away as far as space would allow. No time to lose. He reached into his bag and grabbed a rechargeable electric drill. Had to press on. Nothing, nothing must prevent him from doing what he had to do.

  Behind him a square sheet-metal duct passed from ceiling to floor – the down pipe from the fans on the roof. High up, an extension branched at right-angles – the air supply to the wards.

  Alex saw the black power tool. For a moment he thought Pravic was going to use it on him, to puncture his brain. In the tight, claustrophobic box, with the ventilation roaring in the ducts, his mind and his guts turned to treacle.

  Had to do something. Not just his own life at stake. Hundreds would die if the madman wasn’t stopped.

  Run for help? No chance. Pravic would cut him down.

  Grab the gun? Crazy even to think of it.

  Pravic kicked against a stack of bricks cemented to the floor as a mounting block. Still with an eye on Alex, he stepped up to reach the high, horizontal duct. He glanced away just long enough to locate the drill bit against the panel, then began to cut a hole in its side.

  His ears just centimetres from the air pipes, the noise thundered like the fire that had scorched through the homes of his tormentors in Tulici three weeks ago. At the time of the attack, he’d imagined those flames, the executions and the bitter-sweet defilement of the young woman would be enough to erase the taunting memories, and stop the mocking voices in his head. But it hadn’t been. Silencing them needed one last act.

  The hole finished, he stuffed the drill back in the bag, then reached further in, feeling for soft rubber.

  Alex saw the gas mask and gulped. An object turned by history into the definitive badge of evil. The moment had come. Pravic was about to commit a monstrous, silent massacre – unless Alex could stop him.

  ‘Mach’s nicht!’ he croaked, lamely. ‘Don’t do it. Think of all the innocent . . .’

  ‘Halt’s Maul!’ Pravic snapped, pulling the mask over his head.

  Alex looked into the goggled eyes, watched Pravic crouch by the bag. Saw the paint-sprayer – and the deadly brown liquid that swirled inside its clear, plastic reservoir.

  He held his breath, as if the very nearness of the anthrax spores meant death. He had to stop him. Had to! He tensed his legs.

  Pravic stood up, his overalls glued to his sweaty back. He remounted the bricks and aligned the sprayer with the hole. Alex’s movement caught his eye. He clicked back the pistol hammer. If it was the only way to ensure he could complete his task, he’d shoot.

  Then suddenly, with a moan like an exhausted beast, the ventilator fans died. Silence, total silence that rang in their ears.

  Pravic remained on the mounting block, frozen in disbelief, finger on the trigger of the spray, its nozzle pressed to the useless duct.

  Then he cursed, long and low, the guttural Serbo-Croat muffled by the rubber of the mask.

  With the fans safely shut down, the technical manager led the two nervous policemen to the fourth floor. He knew exactly where Pravic would have gone.

  A radio check had revealed that the Landespolizei reinforcements were still five minutes away, but they couldn’t wait for them.

  He’d identified Pravic from the photo they’d shown him. Pity he hadn’t seen it earlier. Nobody had thought to tell him there was a maniac on the loose.

  Lorna shivered uncontrollably now she knew the killer was in the building. Pravic was up there somewhere – and so was Alex.

  The police cluck-clucked when she told them about him. Interfering civilians. A foreigner at that.

  They asked her to wait with the administrator in his office. She gave them a minute’s head start. Then, making the excuse of needing the toilet, she rushed from the room and headed for the stairs.

  The technician and the two policemen were silent with fear as the elevator carried them to the fourth floor.

  The doors slid open. Two figures crossing the lobby, heading forward F. Pravic pushing Alex in front of him, the gun at his back.

  A nod from the manager. The police drew their guns.

  Alex heard the clunk of the lift doors but dared not turn to look. His hands were bound behind his back with adhesive tape. Pravic was a hair’s breadth behind him. And the pistol bruised his ribs.

  ‘Halt!’ A policeman’s shout. The hollow bark of a man whose only authority was his uniform.

  Pravic hooked an arm around Alex’s neck, and spun him as a shield towards the voice, levelled his automatic and fired. One policeman buckled, clutching his chest. The other stumbled back into the lift where the hospital technician had already sought cover.

  Alex strained against the choking arm, ears whistling. The shot shook him, hammered home the danger he was in. Pravic jerked him sideways into the ward F corridor. Police outside the ward. Police in the lift lobby. More on the way. They’d never let this madman through. They’d gun him down for sure. Shoot them both if they had to . . .

  He heard rough shouts – warnings to staff to stay in their wards.

  Milan Pravic stared left and right. Out of sight of the lobby, now. There’d been two police in the corridor. Gone. Ducked into doorways. A gun, an arm and half a face was all he saw of either of them. His heart thumped.

  He knew he was cornered. But not finished. He had the gun. He had his shield. And above all, he had his need.

  His ears still rang from the crack of the shot. In his head the ringing turned to voices, girls’ voices from inside ward F. Had to get in there to stop them. To silence their derision. There must be no more snickering from Tulici, ever again.

  Lorna panted up the last flight and pushed open the glass-panelled door to the fourth floor. She’d heard the shot, feared the worst. Hand to her mouth, she saw the sprawled policeman, gasped at the pool of red spreading from his chest.

  Footsteps on the stairs behind her. A nurse pushed past and ripped open a sterile dressing to press on the policeman’s wound.

  ‘Alex?’ Lorna called. Half shout, half whisper. Bewildered.

  Hearing her, the technical manager rushed from the lift, and hustled her back to the stairs. She twisted from his grip. He gave up, scrambling through the doors to save himself.

  The second policeman growled into his radio, ignoring her. He checked his wounded colleague was in good hands, then edged up to the corner of the corridor, gun arm extended.

  Lorna took in the scene and understood. Pravic must be metres away. Down the corridor which led to Vildana’s ward. And for the police to be so cautious, there must be someone with him . . .

  Alex.

  Full of dread, she stepped round the nurse and the body on the floor. Heedless of the risk, she edged forward.

  She glimpsed Pravic. Saw his arm tight under the chin of a hostage. Saw who the hostage was. Saw the gun at his temple . . .

  ‘Ale . . .’ she screamed. The cry died in her throat as the policeman barged her back out of sight.

  ‘Zurück! Sind Sie verrückt?’ he hissed, shoving her through the doors to the stairs, then returning to his watch.

  Alex felt the gun hot against his jawbone.

  He’d caught a glimpse of Lorna. Why had they let her through?

  She mustn’t see him die. Mind spinning. Stupid thoughts suddenly important. The end. For him the pain might be quick. For her it would linger.

&nb
sp; In his ear, the Bosnian’s breath in jerky spasms. He sensed Pravic’s nerve go.

  ‘Drop the guns or I kill him!’ Pravic screamed. Fear in his voice. No wish to be a martyr.

  Me neither, Alex thought.

  Inside ward F, Vildana stared at the door, transfixed by the shout in the corridor outside. The same voice she’d heard on that day of death, cowering in her hidey-hole behind a cupboard. The shouts, the laughter, the gurgle of the madman who’d ripped open her mother’s belly with a hunting knife branded on her memory. The Scorpion. He had come for her, like she always knew he would.

  Nancy Roche kneeled on the floor beside Vildana’s bed, clutching the girl’s hand. Two other children in the ward, both crying. Between the metal bed legs Nancy watched the police officer braced by the door, his right arm extended into the corridor. At that moment she trusted his invincibility in the way a child trusts its father. Had to.

  But if he failed? If the crazy Bosnian blazed his way into the ward? What if she was the last barrier between Vildana and death? Would she sacrifice her own life if she had to? Would Irwin want that? Scott and Ella?

  She sank closer to the floor, checking how much room there was under the bed.

  The young policeman pressed his forehead to the door jamb, eye in line with the Heckler und Koch that had become an extension of his arm. Poised to kill a man for the first time in his life. He remembered the certificate on the bedroom wall at home. Top of his year for marksmanship. But paper targets were different from an armed man.

  He saw the gunman edge closer, his back to the corridor wall, hugging the Englishman like a security blanket. A clear sight of Pravic’s head, for just two seconds, that’s all he wanted. All it would take to snuff him out, to pop the balloon with a bullet, just like the display shoots on open day at the police college.

  Alex heard his own breath rasp, felt the tape sear his wrists as he struggled to loosen his hands. Could be dead within seconds unless he did something. Powerless though. Tipped back on his heels. Unable to use weight and strength.

  Just needed one chance. One chink of an opportunity . . .

  A moment’s glance from the police marksman to his companion in the doorway opposite. A nod of agreement. Beyond Pravic at the corner to the lift lobby he saw that the third man was ready too.