Critical Condition

by CJ Lyons

  “Looks like we’re the cavalry,” she told Trey as he turned off Penn Avenue.

  The snow had slowed, as had the wind. In the distance they could see the lights of the first plow trucks slowly making their way down Penn Avenue. The street in front of the hospital was piled deep with drifts—probably from the wind having had little to slow it as it scoured through the cemetery, Lydia guessed. Even with the snowplow on Bessie, Trey couldn’t get them any closer than the far end of the ER drive.

  “Guess we walk from here. You up to it?” He nodded to Lydia’s arm with its broken cast. She’d wrapped it in duct tape to give it some stability; it still hurt like a son of a bitch, but not half as bad as knowing that her friends were in danger because of her. No way in hell was she waiting on the sidelines.

  “Let’s go.” She opened her door and climbed down onto a snowdrift, settling her weight slowly to make sure it wouldn’t collapse. She didn’t slam the door shut, worried about how far the noise would carry now that the wind had died down. Only the faint scrape and diesel grind of the snowplow in the distance interrupted the silence.

  Trey climbed around to meet her, and together they slid down the side of the drift and into the shelter of the ambulance bay.

  “Who the hell are you?” A man’s voice came from an Excursion parked to Lydia’s right. He came around the SUV, aiming a machine gun at them.

  “We’re here to help,” Lydia said in a bright tone as she edged her left hand into her pocket. She had the Taurus holstered on her belt and the nine-millimeter she’d taken from Black in her pocket. She’d forced Trey to take the other semiautomatic, although she suspected he wouldn’t use it.

  “That’s nice,” the man said. “I need some help. Starting with the keys to your snowplow.”

  “It’s not really a snowplow,” Trey said, reaching into his pocket. He didn’t make eye contact with Lydia, but he didn’t have to. She knew exactly what he was planning. She stomped her feet as if she were cold and eased over a little more to her right so they could catch the man in a crossfire. “It’s a rescue vehicle.”

  “Whatever. Just give me the keys.”

  Trey and Lydia drew their guns simultaneously. The man jerked his own gun, but his gloved finger caught in the trigger guard before he could fire. Trey moved with the grace and speed that always made Lydia catch her breath—they were what had attracted her to him in the first place—easily snatching the gun away. Then he patted the man down and took a pistol and a knife from him as well. They soon had him restrained with some Flex-Cuffs they found in the Excursion.

  “How many inside?” Lydia asked as Trey examined the machine gun. For a man who hated guns, he suddenly seemed very interested in them.

  “I want a lawyer.” The man pinched his lips tight together, his eyes slitting into a sullen stare into oblivion.

  Lydia ignored him as she rummaged through the rear of the vehicle. She pulled out a roll of building plans. “Look, pictures.”

  Trey joined her and they scrutinized the plans. “Looks like they were containing everyone ambulatory in the auditorium. And blocking the fire doors to all the floors so no one would be able to leave from the other patient floors.”

  “Makes sense—once they locked the elevators down, they could search the hospital at will.” Lydia tried not to think about how the men with guns had been searching for her, wandering the halls of the hospital, taking her friends hostage. “Probably at least half a dozen men.”

  “More like eight or nine,” Trey said. He flipped the page of schematics to one showing the utilities and wiring. “They were making notes on the wiring for the backup generator and its fuel intake.”

  Lydia drew back and stared at him. “Black said these guys were going to burn the hospital down.”

  “That’d be the place to do it.” Trey craned his head up at the dark towers above them. “And it would explain why they needed to turn the power off.”

  “Does it say what they did?” To her the blueprints were a squiggle of lines—but Trey had experience reading building plans; they obviously made sense to him.

  “No, but there aren’t many ways they could. Easiest would be to rig the wires to send a live current through the fuel when the generator is started. Maybe add a long-distance current source as an igniter so they could remotely control it.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  He squinted, his features solemn in the map light. “I think so.”

  “Okay, you go after the generator, I’ll go after the hostages.”

  “Wait, alone?”

  Lydia loved it when Trey wrinkled his eyes in dismay like that and his eyebrows collided in an inverted V—it was so nice that someone cared. Even if he didn’t have a chance in hell of winning this argument. “Yes, alone.”

  NORA HAD NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL SHE WAS doing—it was a very uneasy, yet liberating feeling. She could understand now why Gina had been tempted to impersonate Lydia. She felt like she was impersonating someone else herself, anyone but a by-the-book charge nurse.

  “Just because you didn’t get what you came for is no reason to leave empty-handed.” She leaped down from the stage and ambled down the aisle toward the men, her stride confident, cocky even.

  “She’s stalling,” Harris said. He waved the South African onto the stage. “See what’s going on behind that curtain.”

  Harris kept his gun trained on Nora as the South African bounded past her and leaped onto the stage, ignoring the stairs. He yanked back the heavy velvet curtain, revealing the escape route. “Looks like this is how the others got out.”

  “Okay, come on back.” Harris raised his voice. “The rest of you—yeah, I know you all are down there—just stay where you are.”

  “I don’t trust you,” Harris told Nora as the South African rejoined them.

  “You don’t have to trust me,” she told them. “This is a hospital. We have a vault full of drugs. Not to mention cash—you’d be surprised how much cash a place like this has on hand, especially for a holiday weekend.”

  “She’s right,” the South African said, his eyes glinting. “We should walk away with something for our trouble. They’d need more cash on hand for the holiday weekend,” he reasoned. “You know, for the cafeteria and pharmacy and all.”

  One down, one to go.

  Harris was still unconvinced, shaking his head at Nora. “What’s in it for you?”

  “Simple. We get to live. You get the money and leave.”

  “How do we access the vaults with the power off?”

  Ah, now he was hooked too. Greed, it never failed. “You didn’t kill Tillman, did you?”

  “No, we’ve got him stashed outside. Couldn’t put up with his whining any longer.”

  “Good. He has the override key in his office.” She couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth—she was creating a vault and overrides and keys, spinning them from thin air. And from Seth’s addiction to caper movies. Which was why she gave them Tillman. Every good caper needed a fall guy.

  A light went on in Harris’s eyes, and she saw him calculating how long it would take them to get to Tillman’s office, ransack the vault, and get out before triggering the explosion that would burn down the hospital and kill everyone—which, of course, was why he didn’t seem to really care about the hostages escaping the auditorium. He knew their fate was sealed.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “But you come with us. Anything goes wrong—”

  The South African laughed, finishing the sentence for Nora by hoisting his machine gun.

  AMANDA STILL THOUGHT THE PLAN WAS A SUICIDE mission. But if it gave Lucas a chance to get out alive, she was willing to go along with Gina’s crazy ideas. She and Jerry helped Gina gather the equipment she needed and carry it down to the auditorium. They set up in the lobby right in front of the doors, using the darkness as cover.

  “Okay, I’m ready,” Gina whispered to them, pocketing Lucas’s otoscope to use as a light source when she was ready. “Remember, send
Harris out the far door.”

  “Maybe I’ll just shoot them both, save you the trouble,” Amanda muttered, surprising herself by being more than half serious. It was one thing to have your fairy-tale New Year’s Eve dream date ruined, quite another to have the man you love placed in danger. She wondered if she could actually kill someone—not that Harris and the South African didn’t deserve it.

  “Don’t take any unnecessary chances,” Gina reminded her, seemingly following Amanda’s thoughts. “Remember, Jerry only has one shot.”

  Amanda had offered to split the ammo she had left, but they decided all Jerry needed was one shot to get the South African’s attention. Better that Amanda keep the rest since she might actually hit what she was aiming at.

  “Be careful,” Jerry told Gina. Despite the fact that he had whispered the two words, he’d made them sound loud and urgent. “Maybe I should—”

  “No.” Gina said. “We stick to the plan. And don’t forget, stay inside. I can’t risk anything happening to you if things go wrong.”

  Amanda tugged at Jerry’s arm. She wanted to get this over with before something could go wrong, like everything else that had gone wrong today.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  LYDIA AND TREY CROSSED THROUGH THE AMBULANCE bay. The ER doors were locked—the first time Lydia had ever seen that happen. But a short distance away, they saw a tarp billowing through a broken window.

  “What the hell?” Lydia held the tarp to one side while Trey shone his light inside. He’d grabbed a satchel of tools from the Excursion and had it slung over one shoulder, the machine gun over the other.

  “Told you, someone drove a car through the waiting room. But the door to triage is open; we can get through there.”

  He helped her climb through the debris until they reached the hallway on the other side of the triage desk.

  “Sure you don’t want to come with?” he asked when they arrived at the stairwell door. “I’ll let you carry my machine gun.” It would have been funnier if they both hadn’t known that the only reason he’d taken the machine gun was because it would make for a better diversion if he needed to use it.

  “Just be careful.” Lydia stood on her tiptoes to give Trey a quick kiss. Wished it were longer, wished they had all the time in the world.

  “Me, I’m just playing with a little electricity—you’re the one who’d better be careful.”

  She walked away before she could think twice about it. The ER was a shambles: the nurses’ station destroyed, snowdrifts swirling around her feet, wind whistling down the long, deserted corridors. It was like being in a spook house on Halloween. Except the spooks she was looking for carried guns.

  Keeping her gun hand free, she held her flashlight between the fingers left exposed by her cast. It meant she had to move her entire arm to aim the light, and every movement brought a new wave of pain from her arm, but it was better than holding the light in her teeth.

  She’d made it almost to the intersection with the corridor leading to the auditorium when she heard a small scraping sound. Whirling, Lydia spun the light high and low, her gun following its aim.

  “I know that smell.” The man’s voice came from behind a laundry hamper. “You’re not one of them.”

  “Come out,” she ordered, not lowering her guard.

  The man leaned on the hamper to climb to his feet, and she saw that one of his ankles was swathed in a brace. “You’re not from the zoo. What were you doing with my penguins?”

  NORA HAD NO CHOICE. IT WAS THE PRICE SHE PAID for coloring outside the lines, but if it gave everyone else time to escape, it was worth it. And with Jerry, Gina, and Amanda running loose around Angels, she still had hope. They had all pulled together before for tough saves in the ER—“minor miracles,” Amanda called them—so why not tonight?

  Nora might have even believed her inner pep rally if the South African hadn’t yanked her forward and tugged her wrists into plastic riot cuffs that pinched so hard she thought they were about to slice through her skin.

  “Let’s go,” he said, pushing her in front of him toward the door.

  “Hold it!” Jerry’s voice called from the second doorway behind them.

  The South African wheeled, pulling Nora close as a shield. The action momentarily blocked his access to his machine gun, though, so he drew his pistol instead.

  Jerry stood, silhouetted in the scattered lights from the stage and aisle, aiming a gun at the South African, needing both hands to keep it steady. Nora’s stomach sank into her toes—Jerry’s gun had no bullets; it was more a security blanket than a weapon.

  Then he fired off a shot. She jerked in surprise.

  “Drop your weapon!” another voice—could that be Amanda?—came from behind them.

  The South African tried to whirl around again, aiming to put his back to the wall so that he could face both adversaries—and keeping Nora in the crossfire as he did.

  Nora wasn’t about to let that happen. As he pivoted his weight, she elbowed him in the groin with the combined force of both her arms and threw her weight forward.

  He released her, grabbing his machine gun. Shots rang out above her. Then a body crumpled beside her.

  The South African. His machine gun had fallen to one side. Nora grabbed the pistol from his limp hand. He wasn’t dead, just writhing in pain from twin wounds in his thighs and another in his belly.

  “Jerry, you did that?” she asked, amazed that Jerry’s coordination had allowed him to make such precision shots.

  He shook his head.

  “It was me,” Amanda said, shoving a pistol into the sash of her ball gown, which now looked like someone had sent it through a paper shredder. “Where’s Lucas?”

  “Where’s Harris?” Jerry asked, looking around.

  “He left right before you came in. Went to get Tillman.”

  Jerry did a stutter step, and then his eyes went wide at her words and he raced back out again.

  GINA COULDN’T BELIEVE HER BAD LUCK—ALL THEIR planning and Harris had waltzed out of the auditorium while Jerry was checking around the corner for guards. She’d left her position to tell Jerry, but he’d been too far away.

  So instead she grabbed the bare essentials and tracked Harris. It wasn’t hard; he had a flashlight and wasn’t looking over his shoulder or trying to hide. Guys like him never did—like her dad, always assuming he could get away with anything, never thinking to cover it up. If Moses Freeman did something and you didn’t like it, tough luck because he wasn’t going to back down.

  Harris crossed the lobby to the information desk, usually staffed by volunteers. There was a small closet behind it, just large enough for a few coats and some office supplies.

  He pushed through the swinging half-door into the area behind the desk. Gina took the opportunity to empty a liter bottle of saline, creating a puddle a few feet in front of the swinging door. She made no noise until the very end when the bottle made one tiny gurgle.

  Harris’s light swept over the air above her. Gina froze, flattening herself against the slate floor. Then he went back to jangling the closet door—obviously trying to unlock it, cursing as he went through keys on a ring.

  She placed an electrode pad on each side of the half-door. She only had ten feet of wire to work with, but she inched her way backward until she’d used it all, hoping the shadows would hide most of her work.

  When she looked back she couldn’t see anything except a black void—hopefully Harris wouldn’t shine his flashlight down at the floor. The LifePaks were already charged and ready to go—all she’d need to do was hit a button on each. When the time was right.

  Harris had the door open and was hauling a man from the closet. As the flashlight angled over him, she saw it was Tillman—gagged with a length of gauze and his hands bound in front of him. His toupee hung by a few strands, looking like he’d grown a second head—one bald and the other an orangutan pelt with a cheap bleach job.

  Damn, that changed everything. She tried to work
the physics problem in her mind, but there were too many variables. She had no choice but to play it out. The fate of the entire hospital rested on it.

  Harris pushed Tillman through the swinging half-door. The CEO went sprawling, stumbling into the wall, then sliding down it to sit on the floor, looking stunned.

  Good, that got him out of the way. Hopefully far enough. She had to stop Harris before he grabbed Tillman again. Which hadn’t been part of her plan—of course, it wasn’t like anything she planned seemed to go right. What was Lydia always telling her was the key to life in the ER? Improvisation—Gina had had more than her fill of it today.

  She stood and turned the otoscope on. “Hold it, Harris.”

  His light hit her square in the face. She squinted but could still see enough to play her part. “You. The secretary. Or actually—Dr. Freeman, I presume?”

  Gina raised her gun. “Drop the radio and your gun.”

  He regarded her. Then laughed. “Tillman told me all about you, Dr. Regina Freeman. Poor little rich girl working here, hoping to win Mommy and Daddy’s approval. You hid like a coward when your boyfriend was shot. You’re not going to shoot me.”

  Every fiber, every nerve and cell in her body screamed for her to run and hide, but Gina held her ground, the hand holding the gun shaking uncontrollably. No need to pretend to be scared, she was terrified.

  “You have no idea what I’m capable of.” Even more frightening—she had no idea what she was capable of.

  “Put the gun down.” He took another step forward. One foot in the saline puddle. Just one more step . . .

  The auditorium doors crashed open. Jerry ran out, coming from Gina’s right side. “Drop it!”

  He held a gun. His Beretta. His empty Beretta.

  Damn it, he was going to ruin everything and get himself killed in the process. “Get out of here, Jerry!” Gina shouted.

  Harris stepped sideways, into the center of the saline, as he turned to cover them both. Then he laughed and resolutely turned his back to Jerry and aimed at Gina. “Put the gun down, Detective Boyle. Unless you want to watch your girlfriend die.”