by Jan Coffey
Marion looked around. The double doors to Test Drift facility were directly across from the doors for the lab.
Opening the first set of doors had taken a lot out of her. She sat down on the duffel bag and directed the light at the rungs of ladder that went up the side of the shaft and disappeared into the pitch blackness overhead.
She wondered if the ladder went all the way up to the hoist on the roof. From the looks of it, though, she didn’t think there was much room between the ladder and the track for the elevator car. She realized there must be an emergency access door in the floor of the car, itself. The WIPP facility manual identified the distance from the lab floor to the surface at 2150 feet.
“I might as well be climbing Mount Everest,” she muttered in the murky air.
Marion considered for a moment if climbing the ladder—even assuming she had the strength—was the best way to go. It was unlikely the killers were hanging around up there after all this time, but there was nothing saying that the building at the top of the shaft hadn’t been destroyed.
She had to make up her mind.
Marion reached inside the shoulder bag and took out a bottle of water. She drank down half of it. She shone the light up the metal rungs again. It still seemed like the better choice. Going up, she wouldn’t have to think about the imminent risk of radiation poisoning in the Test Drift storage area. At least, not more risk than she’d already taken. There was a reason why the adjacent facility was run by robots.
The booklet identified the radiation levels in the sealed chambers as topping at 400 rem, about equivalent to 40,000 chest x-rays or so. That amount of radiation would kill half the people receiving it. Marion’s estimation was that the actual numbers would probably be a lot higher than that. In any case, she didn’t want to be one of them.
Having talked herself into climbing the elevator shaft, she went through the two bags. There was no way she would make it carrying both of these bags. She separated what she thought she might absolutely need as far as food and drink. If she survived the climb, she might also have to survive a walk through the desert, and she didn’t know how far that trek would be. She took extra batteries for the flashlight. The tools were heavy, but she decided she could need something to help her open the doors at the top once she got there. She couldn’t carry the crowbar; it was just too heavy. The best choice seemed to be the hammer.
As she yanked the hammer free, the doors slid shut with a dull thud.
Marion took a couple of deep breaths to fight the momentary feeling of panic. The walls instantly seemed to be growing closer. Her lungs couldn’t draw in enough air.
She leaned down and hurriedly put all the things she’d decided to bring into the shoulder bag. She laid the flashlight and the coil of rope she’d found in the maintenance closet on the ground at her feet, and hoisted the bag across her shoulders. She couldn’t think too much about where she was, how little her chances were. She couldn’t defeat herself before she tried. There was still the question of where the elevator was physically in the tunnel and if she could get around it or through it. She decided she’d just have to face that hurdle when she got to it.
Marion pushed her head and one arm through the coil of rope and hooked the flashlight to it.
“Okay. Let’s do it,” she whispered, looking up.
CHAPTER 45
Waterbury Long-Term Care Facility
Connecticut
Someone intended to kill Amelia.
The written message, intended to draw Mark Shaw away from the patient’s room, sealed it. This wasn’t some tired night-shift nurse’s mix-up. There had been no one at the front lobby waiting for Mark.
Someone inside the care facility had planned the murder.
Sid stepped inside and closed the door to Amelia’s room. Three Waterbury police cars had responded immediately, racing to the facility when they’d called it in. Mark and a couple of detectives were interviewing the nurse. She claimed that she was following what was on the prescription slip, and she didn’t even know what the medication was for. Sid believed her and he guessed Mark did, as well.
The rest of the police officers were combing through the building, questioning everyone else who was working tonight. They were also searching for any unauthorized people who might be inside. There was no security to speak of in this place. Sid guessed there had never been much need for it.
The flashing lights from the police cars outside were reflecting off the walls of Amelia’s room. Sid walked toward the windows. He could see two officers outside walking the perimeter of the building grounds. Dawn was about to break; the sky was just starting to grow lighter. He closed the shades.
Sid wondered how much Amelia had understood of what had happened. He worried how much more helpless she might feel now because of it. He turned to her. She was awake, watching his every move.
Sid had never left the room since the chaos erupted following the attempt to give her the wrong medication. Still, police detectives and the night security man and Mark had been in and out of the room. The entire time, Amelia had observed everything going on around her. He wondered if perhaps…just perhaps…she knew exactly what was going on.
“Why would anyone try to hurt you?” Sid asked, walking to her bedside.
He remembered what Jennifer had told them about where and how they’d found Amelia six years ago. Someone had pushed her out of a moving car onto the highway. They had intended to kill her then. Sid couldn’t help but wonder if word had gotten out, and now the same person was back to finish the job. She might recall the details of that night. She might even be able to tell them who had pushed her out.
He considered the possibility of connecting her to the test equipment again. He didn’t know if she would communicate better with them that way. The last time she’d been connected, they’d only been able to record what she was actually seeing at that moment.
Too much was happening too soon. Sid understood that there was the possibility that she might slip into a minimally conscious state at any time…in the same manner that she’d come out of it.
“We’re not going to let anything happen to you,” he told her. “Tomorrow, we’re moving you to a new place where they’ll start teaching you how to talk and use those muscles…and maybe even walk. You can explain some of what’s going on to us then.”
Lines that weren’t there before creased her brow. He wanted to reach out and smooth them. There were dark circles under her eyes. She blinked as if agreeing to what he was saying. Despite the stress, she had the most beautiful eyes. Sid caught himself and looked at the IV drip hooked into her arm. He picked up her chart.
“There will be all kinds of new people working with you when you arrive at Gaylord Hospital.” He felt the need to talk, to let her know what the changes would be. He also had to remind himself that she was his patient. There were ethical lines Sid was willing to toe, but getting inappropriately involved was not one of them. “My team and I are going to stay with you. And Jennifer has already promised to come and see you every day. Gaylord is only half an hour away from here, and she tells me it’s only a ten minute drive from her house.”
Sid hung the chart back up. That was when he saw her right hand. Her fingers were moving and not just involuntarily. They were repeating a pattern.
“You are going to get all better by yourself, aren’t you?” he asked her. “You are not waiting for anyone else to tell you it’s time to move your hands or your feet or anything.”
He looked at her face. Her gaze was focused now on her right hand. He tried to figure what she was doing.
“Are you tracing letters on the blanket?”
She blinked.
“Do you want me to hand you a pen and paper?”
She blinked again.
He looked around him and spotted pad of paper and pen next to the room telephone. She was trying to communicate with them. She was ready to tell them things.
Sid raised the head of the bed to a forty-five degree an
gle. He adjusted a pillow behind her so she had lower back support. Jennifer had mentioned that Amelia had done well with that before. She was able to support her neck for short periods of time. He placed the pad of paper under her right hand. He positioned the pen between her fingers. She tried to hold it but it slipped through her fingers. He placed it in her fingers again. Her joins were weak and the muscles unresponsive. Finally she wrapped her fingers around the pen and held it.
“Excellent. Take your time. Write down whatever you want,” he said, pulling a chair next to the bed.
She stared straight ahead for a minute and then closed her eyes. Her fingers, though, continued to struggle to move the pen. It was obvious she wasn’t going back to sleep but concentrating.
“You are doing it,” he told her. The ink started to leave a mark on the paper. She made some scratching marks before moving the tip of the pen an inch away. A letter started to form.
“W,” Sid said aloud.
She opened her eyes and lifted her neck from pillow, looking at what she’d done. She blinked, yes. He took her fisted hand and moved the pen to where she could write more.
He tried to think what the letter might signify, but she seemed already intent on the next letter.
This one was only a straight line. “L?” he asked.
She only stared at him.
“Is it an ‘I’?” he asked.
She blinked, yes.
“So far, we have WI,” he told her.
She blinked again.
She seemed to be struggling with the next letter. First, Sid thought it was O, but she gave no indication that he was right. She drew a line next to it.
“P?” he asked.
She blinked again.
“WIP?” he asked.
She made him understand that he was right. She immediately started writing again. This time Sid picked it up the first time. “P again?”
She blinked, and Sid thought he saw the trace of a smile on her features.
“I’m not so dumb after all,” he smiled himself. “So far we have WIPP.”
Amelia closed her eyes for few moments and opened them again.
“Okay, tell me what’s next?”
With an effort, she opened her hand and let the pen drop through her fingers onto the blanket.
She laid her head back on the pillow and turned her face away.
CHAPTER 46
Washington, DC
Joseph Ricker felt the disposable phone vibrate in the inside pocket of his jacket. Taking it out, he looked at the display. The call was from his contact in Connecticut. Instead of answering, he looked around Nebraska Avenue. The traffic was light.
“Right there,” he told the driver, pointing. “Pull over and stop there.”
They were very close to the American University campus. The driver did as he was told.
Joseph moved across the back seat and got out of the car. The cell phone had stopped ringing, but he knew it’d be only a matter of a minute before it rang again.
He moved across the sidewalk up onto a lawn. The grass was wet. He didn’t like that his shoes were getting wet. The phone in his hand came to life as he’d expected. He checked the number. The same contact.
“I expect good news,” he said without greeting.
“Not yet.”
Joseph swore under his breath.
“Being discreet is a problem,” the man said at the other end.
“What do you mean?”
“We tried it. It was a damn good set up, too. The autopsy…if there was one…would have written the death off as medical staff error. But it didn’t work.”
“Why not?” Joseph asked, frustrated.
“You didn’t tell us she has guard dogs.”
“She’s a vegetable…practically in a coma. Of course, there are people who look after her.”
“I’m not talking about nurses. She’s got a cop and an MD who burn the midnight oil in her room.”
The cop Durr mentioned. Joseph didn’t know the sonovabitch was still hanging around.
“Listen, you’re getting paid a lot of money for this. You should be able to handle any kind of complication that comes up. Are you professionals or not?” The best defense was offense.
Joseph immediately looked around, realizing he’d been talking far too loud. A woman passing by on the sidewalk was staring at him. He felt like giving her a finger but decided against it.
“We are professionals,” the caller replied coolly. “There’s no job that we can’t handle…so long as we have all the details. You didn’t give us enough information.”
Joseph rubbed his neck. He’d given them everything he knew. Martin Durr would not like this. Joseph had to take this woman out of the picture. Simple as that. Durr would never expose himself to criminals like this one, but he wanted the job done.
Joseph would face serious consequences if these men failed. He knew it would not be matter of decreased salary or even diminished perks associated with the job. And there would be no looking for a comparable position anywhere else. Even if he could, there would be no job postings out there for someone with exactly his experience. No, he thought, there would be consequences, but not the kind an ordinary employee faces. Durr would never let him go.
Joseph had never been able to find out anything about his predecessor. He’d been told the position was new when he’d moved into it eight years ago. Joseph didn’t believe it then. He still didn’t believe it. Someone as powerful as Durr needed middle-men to handle the pawns. To manage the dirty work.
The man or the woman who’d been Durr’s personal assistant before Joseph had disappeared off the face of the earth. He sure as hell didn’t want to go there.
Joseph walked farther away from the sidewalk and softened his tone.
“Okay. You have a suggestion about how you are going to complete this job?” he asked, enunciating every word. He wanted to make sure the man understood he was still expected to finish the contract.
“I have a couple of ideas.”
“What are they?”
“The first one is messy.”
“How messy.”
“We can blow up the place.”
Joseph coughed to hide his shock. “That’s bit much, isn’t it? Aren’t there a lot of people that work there? Aren’t there patients?”
“I told you it would be messy. But it would work. They’ve been working on the gas-line in that section of town for a month now. It would be easy to set it up.”
“No,” Joseph said firmly. There were way too many variables that he couldn’t control. They’d have half of the Connecticut State Police and the FBI and Homeland Security on their tail. “What else?”
“I-84.”
“I assume that’s a highway,” Joseph said.
“Yeah, it is,” the man told him. “They’re moving her today to some bigger hospital. They’ll take I-84 to get there. People die every day in accidents on I-84.”
“She’ll be in an ambulance,” Joseph reminded him.
“My men have taken care of a number of jobs involving transportation. Today’s front page of the Waterbury paper has a picture of a jackknifed truck. Three people died as the result of it. On I-84. We’ve arranged accidents just like it. Taking care of an ambulance will be easy.”
Joseph wasn’t convinced. Also, Cynthia Adrian’s mishap in California had been handled as an automobile accident. He wasn’t crazy about patterns. Still, there was no point in stopping the man from working on it. He had no plan of his own to suggest.
“Remember. I don’t want any major disasters. No explosions. No mass murder. Nothing that brings in the feds. But the job has to get done.”
“Even if it isn’t discreet? Or accidental?”
“Even if it isn’t. She has to die.”
“How about bodies? Do they have to find her?”
“What are you going to do to her?” Joseph asked.
“Answer the question. I want a back up plan. We might have to change the detai
ls depending on how things go.”
“Go for it,” Joseph told him. At the last minute, he remembered what his boss was having him arrange for in New Mexico. Durr wanted proof that Marion Kagan was dead. “But if the body is going to disappear, I’m going to need proof that you’ve actually done the job.”
“You’re a strange bird, man,” the caller had the nerve to say.
“You’re getting paid a lot of money,” Joseph reminded him again.
“No problem. I’ll send you an early Christmas package…but don’t open it in front of the missus.”
CHAPTER 47
Nuclear Fusion Test Facility
Rung is definitely a four-letter word, Marion thought without humor.
She didn’t know if she was a tenth of the way or half the way to the top. What she did know was that she could no longer ignore the pain in her head, her back, her legs, her arms. Her muscles were screaming and her head was hurting so badly that her vision was beginning to blur. With every metal rung of the ladder she was climbing, she felt the burn on her fingers and palms where blisters had long ago formed, only to be rubbed raw.
At the start of the climb, she’d tried to keep track of the number of rungs as she went up. The climb, though, was harder than she could have ever imagined. The bag she was carrying across her shoulders was so much heavier than it was at the bottom. Before she’d climbed a hundred rungs, the fatigue had begun to set in and her brain lost the ability to keep count. Looping one arm through the metal and resting her feet on another rung below, all she could see was darkness above and below.
The beam of the flashlight shone on electrical cables that ran up along the wall to her right. For a fleeting second, Marion thought she saw a small creature running down along it.
She shivered. “Please…no rats.”
She turned her back to the cables, thinking how stupid it would be to let go of her hold because of a fear of rats.
