by Debra Webb
“Working on it,” Pratt called out.
“I’ll work with Pratt,” Grace offered. “At least until I have something from Schaffer.”
Ryan nodded, using the opportunity to take a long, unhurried look at her even as she turned her back and walked away. She’d gone home to shower and change. The burgundy suit was different from the others, tighter, just a tad shorter. More of those killer shoes, these a perfect match to the suit. He followed the path of her toned legs from her ankles to just above her knees.
His pulse reacted to the X-rated images of all the things he would like to do to her.
Later...when he wasn’t scared shitless that he would let someone die.
He stared at the e-mail, read the puzzling lines once more.
“...holds life in his hands...he is not God...”
“This Trenton,” Ryan announced, “is a doctor.” He looked from Pratt, to Grace. “A doctor with a major God complex.”
Grace looked away first but not before he saw the glow of pride in her eyes. At first the idea baffled him, then he realized what it meant. She was proud of him. That unfamiliar feeling constricted his chest once more and he shook his head. The rookie had latched on to some unexpected real estate that he hadn’t even realized was on the market.
The last time anyone had owned a piece of his heart, he’d been a kid.
He just hoped the lady understood the kind of shitty neighborhood she’d bought into.
Grace abruptly swiveled away from the computer where she worked next to Pratt. “I’ve got him.” Her gaze homed in on Ryan’s. “Dr. Kurt Trenton, forty-eight years old, five eleven, one-sixty, gray eyes, salt-and-pepper hair. Cardiac surgeon.”
“Not just any cardiac surgeon,” Pratt added, twisting around to face Ryan as he evidently landed the info as well. “This guy was one of the country’s leading transplant surgeons. He’s been on Good Morning America.”
“Is,” Grace clarified with a glance at Pratt, “the leading transplant surgeon.” Her attention fixed back on Ryan then. “On Tuesday he’s scheduled to perform a rare procedure, an autotransplant, on former Alabama Governor Donald Shelby. Only two people have survived the procedure. In both cases, Trenton was the surgeon.”
“News flash,” Pratt cut in, apparently determined to one-up his colleague, “the procedure got moved up. The surgery’s scheduled for nine tomorrow morning.”
A new load of pressure settled onto Ryan’s shoulders. Now there were two lives depending on his ability to pull this off.
“Tell me about this rare procedure,” he said, striding toward where Grace and Pratt worked. “Why can’t someone else do it. What’s the big deal?”
Grace clicked a few keys. “Shelby has a tumor or mass of some sort in a heart valve. The heart has to be stopped with chemicals, removed from his chest, and placed in a bucket of ice and water. The patient’s life will be sustained by a heart-lung machine while Trenton removes the tumor and makes the necessary repair to the heart. Then the organ is placed back in the chest and reconnected. Few surgeons would even attempt the procedure and, as I said before, Trenton is the only one who has been successful at it.”
“If we don’t find Trenton”—Ryan dared to say the words aloud—“then Shelby dies too.”
Worth strode into the conference room. “I just received calls from the chief of police as well as the mayor. Dr. Kurt Trenton’s wife reported him missing one hour ago. Birmingham PD discovered his car in the parking garage of UAB Hospital.”
“Your next call,” Ryan warned him, “will come from the governor.”
A frown drew Worth’s brow into a pucker. “What do you mean?”
Worth’s secretary burst through the door. “Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt but Governor Wiley is on the line for you.”
Timing. It was all in the timing. Devoted Fan had a statement to make. He had just moved from a side note in local news to prime time.
Monday, September 11, 3:00 a.m.
Six hours remaining...
Davis rushed to where Ryan sat reviewing schematics of every hospital in the city. He’d already gotten a city wide layout showing where every church was located. Hospitals and churches: the two most likely places for a miracle to happen. And most larger hospitals had chapels.
Worth had been pacing like an expectant father. The pressure was on. If Trenton wasn’t found, former Governor Shelby would most likely die. His condition was deteriorating by the minute.
“Sir...Agent McBride?”
Ryan looked up, startled at being addressed that way. “Yeah, Davis, what have you got?”
“I may have something on that phrase ‘justice is everywhere and threatens injustice anywhere.’ ” He shuffled the pages in his hand. “During his stay in a Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King wrote a letter using a variation on that phrase.” Davis read from his notes, “ ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ ”
Martin Luther King. Oppression. The fight to be equal. Lines from Devoted Fan’s e-mails tumbled one over the other into Ryan’s head. God. Worships his fame. He must be humbled.
“I don’t think he’s alluding to a jail.” Ryan studied the wording of the e-mail again. “He talks about God and Trenton believing he is God, holding life in his hands...‘awaits death just as the One he would pretend to be once suffered so selflessly.’ ”
Aldridge joined the conversation, tapped the pad where he’d written his notes. “There’s a monument, a statue of Martin Luther King in Kelly Ingram Park.” Aldridge looked from Ryan to Davis and back. “Should we search the park?”
“Wait.” Grace pushed away from her station and stood. “The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is there. You can’t get any more high profile. The church is an historic landmark. It was the hub of the civil rights effort—part of Birmingham’s history is written in the blood of four little girls who were killed in that church as part of the movement to oppress blacks.”
Oppression is evil.
But this oppression wasn’t about race, it was about money. Financial means...security. Rich versus poor. Just like the Byrne girl at that high-society cemetery and the Jones woman at the blue-collar steel mill. The girl born with the silver spoon in her mouth; the woman who worked hard for every dollar.
Trenton was a renowned surgeon. It would take big money or the right kind of insurance to obtain treatment from a surgeon of such status.
“Okay...” Ryan said slowly, “Trenton’s class in a sense oppresses the poor by having the best of everything while the working man only gets what’s left over.” Ryan scrubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. “Trenton has the God complex we talked about earlier. He, according to Devoted Fan, is in bad need of humbling.”
“His arrogance is documented in a number of newspaper articles,” Grace contributed.
“He holds life in his hands by selecting some patients and turning others away, probably based on their ability to pay,” Ryan considered aloud.
Worth butted in. “Those kinds of statements have to be kept in this room,” he admonished. “We can’t go around disparaging friends of the governor.”
Ryan ignored Worth, locked gazes with Grace. “The church.” He nodded as if he needed that physical acknowledgment to confirm the thought. “That has to be it. Where else would we find the One, capital O if you’ll notice”—he tapped the e-mail—“Trenton pretends to be?”
“You’re right,” Grace agreed, then shook her head. “But not just any church, the church.”
Ryan tossed the e-mail aside, anticipation soaring. “Where the likeness of Mr. King still watches over from the park, reminding all that ‘oppression is evil.’ ”
“Talley,” Worth called out, “find out who the reverend at Sixteenth Street Baptist is and wake him up. We don’t have time or”—Worth’s attention settled on Ryan—“the necessary probable cause for a warrant. We need an invitation to take a look inside that church.” Worth turned to Aldridge then. “Get Birmingham PD to rendezvous there ASAP.”
To Ryan, Worth said, “You really think this is it? Time is fast running out on us, McBride. We have to find this guy. If we don’t, we’re going to be in a world of shit.”
Birmingham PD was scouring the city one hospital, morgue, church, and neighborhood at a time. But the sweep was broad, not focused, because they didn’t know exactly where to look. And, like Worth said, time was their enemy. The good doctor’s survival depended upon Ryan’s conclusions. If he was wrong about the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church...
“This is the one,” he told Worth with as much certainty as he could muster. “Grace and I aren’t waiting, we’re going now. We’ll meet the reverend at the church entrance.”
“Just don’t go inside without him.” Worth fixed Grace with a stern look. “Find Agent Arnold. Take him with you. He’s a damned good agent and the fact that he’s African-American will prevent the two of you from looking like a pair of white feds pushing your weight around.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ryan had to remember that there was a history of racial problems here...one that appeared to be in the past, but no one wanted to risk going down that road. Least of all him.
“One other thing,” Ryan said, remembering the circus outside. “We’re going to need Birmingham PD to hold those reporters back until we’re out of here. I don’t think you want any of them showing up at the church.”
“I’ve already taken care of that. When you leave the parking lot, you’ll get a five-minute head start before the road block is lifted.”
Grace rounded up Arnold and the decision was made to take his sedan. It was a dark charcoal and far more nondescript than her silver Edge. As promised, barricades had been put into place by Birmingham PD at each end of the block, preventing the reporters from following.
4:55 a.m.
Four hours, five minutes remaining...
When they arrived at the corner of Sixteenth Street and Sixth Avenue, the Reverend Simmons waited on the steps leading into the historic church.
Ryan surveyed the area when he emerged from the car. Dark, quiet. But something in the air had his senses on alert. Those old instincts were humming. If they were all lucky, that was a good sign.
He leaned against the car, lit a Marlboro, and gestured to the reverend. “Explain what we need.” He looked from Grace to Arnold. “I’ll catch up.”
Arnold hustled up the steps, Grace followed more slowly. She didn’t have to say a word, Ryan could read her surprise right there on her face in the glow of the street lamps. Time was balls-to-the-wall short, what the hell was he thinking taking a smoke break?
Because he needed it.
His hand shook as he lifted the cigarette to his lips and took another deep drag.
If he was wrong and Trenton wasn’t in this church...there likely wouldn’t be enough time to narrow down another location before time ran out. Trenton would die and so would Shelby.
Ryan’s inability to get the job done would prove Devoted Fan a fool and that the Bureau had been right to off-load him three years ago.
Sure, the big exposé that reporter had done revealed the war that had gone down between Quinn and Ryan, but any agent worth his salt would know that didn’t prove a damned thing. Ryan’s retrieval plan could very well have gone wrong just as Quinn’s route had. There was no way to ever be sure. Maybe the Bureau had been right...maybe he had been destined to crash and burn. And just maybe if he hadn’t been, Quinn wouldn’t have snatched control away at the last minute.
Any way you looked at it, Ryan couldn’t say it wasn’t his fault. All the more reason he shouldn’t be here doing this. People were counting on him and he wasn’t sure he could live up to the expectations.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t shit he could do about it.
One last pull from the smoke and he pushed away from the car. He dropped the butt on the sidewalk, ground it out, but then picked up the snuffed-out remains and shoved them into his pocket. This was a church, after all.
Sacred ground. Where four little girls had died in a bombing because some asshole had thought he was better than them.
“...he must be humbled.”
Confidence nudged at Ryan. This had to be the place. Devoted Fan wanted this high profile. He wanted the world watching...
Ryan rushed up the steps two at a time, reached the entrance just as Grace and Arnold followed Simmons inside.
The main sanctuary was filled with pews dressed in thick red cushions and that same brilliant red spilled across the floor in the form of carpet. A balcony circled the sanctuary, providing additional seating. Massive stained-glass windows, each telling a story, wrapped the room in biblical accountings.
The Reverend Simmons led the way through the sanctuary and to all rooms and halls on the upper floor. Ryan’s gut twisted as each area revealed nothing.
“What about the basement level?” he asked, when it was obvious that the sanctuary level was clear.
“This way.” The reverend indicated the door to his right. “I was here until around seven last night,” he explained as he led the way down the winding staircase. “And we had service this morning.”
“To this day the church gets bomb threats,” Arnold said to Ryan. “Every time the church is in the news, the threats filter in as if the news roused some lowlife—”
“Lord have mercy, Jesus.” Simmons gasped.
Ryan moved down the last step to stand next to the reverend, whose horrified gaze had fixated on the abomination erected in the center of the large basement’s gathering place. The bomb in the center of it all launched a new blast of adrenaline through Ryan.
“Nobody move,” he warned.
He weaved between the tables and chairs until he stood before the rudimentary cross where Dr. Kurt Trenton had been lashed crucifixion style. Using extreme caution, Ryan reached up, touched Trenton’s carotid artery. “He’s alive,” he called back to the others.
Alive and naked, save for the bomb on his chest. Trenton’s eyes were closed. Written in black marker across his forehead was one word: godless. His arms and legs had been bound in place with silver duct tape. His mouth was taped shut the same as the other vics had been. At least Devoted Fan was sticking with his tools of choice. Except...for the bomb. That was definitely a little more high tech.
“Is that...” Arnold asked without coming any closer, “what I think it is?”
“Looks like.” Ryan watched the digital timer count down from three hours forty-nine minutes then he considered the IED, improvised explosive device. The working parts were strung together against the doctor’s chest with no casing or enclosure of any sort. Just the guts. As if the doctor’s innards had been bared for the world to see. And they would be if this thing went off.
Ryan turned to face the man of the cloth waiting with Grace and Arnold. “Reverend, I want you and Agent Arnold to go outside and start knocking on the doors of any houses or businesses close by where there might be people. Birmingham PD will assist when they arrive. If this thing goes off, I don’t want anybody in the possible blast radius.” Ryan’s throat tightened. He swallowed. Didn’t help. “Grace, go outside with the others. Call Worth and tell him to get me a bomb unit over here. Now.”
“I’ll make the call and then I’ll be back.”
He’d expected that. No way was he allowing her to play hero. “Arnold, if she tries to come back in here, restrain her.”
“Yes, sir.”
Returning his attention to Trenton, Ryan felt the daggers flying at his back. This was no time to argue. Grace could thank him later. If he didn’t end up splattered all over the block.
The digital clock was ticking right on down, but, barring any unexpected deviations from Devoted Fan’s usual MO, there was plenty of time for the bomb unit to get here and take care of this.
Ryan studied the assembly. The timer and battery were connected to a detonator, which led to a block of what looked like C-4. Defusing this thing shouldn’t be a problem for a trained technician. He had defused one
during his career but it had been a long-ass time and he had been in contact with an expert during the whole process. He hoped that wouldn’t be necessary this morning. He’d hate like hell to get this fancy doctor killed...or be responsible for the loss of this historic landmark.
Unless...maybe he could get it off the victim’s chest, lay it carefully on the floor, then get the victim out of here. That could work.
Careful not to touch anything, he leaned down and peered at the way the bomb was attached to Trenton’s chest since there was no tape or strapping visible.
Not seeing a thing, Ryan tried to work his finger between the timer and Trenton’s chest, but his skin seemed attached to the device. Then Ryan knew. Glue. Something powerful like...Super Glue. Maybe the same glue the unsub had used to trap Katherine Jones.
“Smart bastard,” Ryan griped under his breath. Why couldn’t he have gotten a stupid unsub?
Trenton groaned. Ryan straightened, reached up, and started to peel the tape from his mouth. Trenton’s eyes snapped open. He tried to scream, jerked and bucked in a futile attempt to break free.
“Don’t move, Dr. Trenton,” Ryan urged, drawing his hands away from the man in hopes of calming him. “Don’t move!”
Trenton stilled but his eyes were huge with fear.
“My name is Ryan McBride and I’m with the FBI. Help is on the way. There’s—” The readout on the digital timer jerked his attention there.
59:38
What the hell? A minute ago it had displayed more than three hours forty minutes to go. Now there was less than sixty minutes? Ryan’s tension shot to a whole new level of anxiety.
Trenton started groaning and doing that wiggling-jerking motion again.
The timer went into fast-forward.
“Stop!” Ryan glared at him. “Don’t move! There’s a goddamned bomb strapped to your chest. Every time you move the countdown speeds up.”
The man froze except for the sobs muffled behind the tape still partially covering his mouth.
