Blown Away

by Shane Gericke

  Emily shook her head. The room swayed. “Nothing right now.”

  “I’ll stop by later and check on you. But you’re going to recover just fine.” Winslow headed for the door. “By the way,” she tossed over her shoulder, “what you did for Branch was magnificent. We’re all proud of you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Winslow turned and stuck her tongue out. “C’mon, don’t be modest,” she teased. “The paramedics told me how you saved his life. Take the bow—you deserve it.”

  “I’m not being modest. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The doctor’s brows beetled. “You don’t remember putting your fingers in Branch’s thigh?”

  “These?” Emily replied, staring at her hands. “They’re clean, Doctor. How could they have been inside someone?”

  Winslow walked to the bed. “You were attacked this morning at McDowell Forest Preserve on the city’s north side. Detective Captain Hercules Branch was shot at the same time, as were several civilians.”

  “Branch…” Emily murmured, scrunching up her face to think. “You mentioned that name. It sounds familiar.”

  “Your friend. Your boss,” Winslow prompted. “Hit by submachine-gun bullets. Started geysering blood from his femoral artery. You thrust your fingers into the holes and plugged—”

  “Branch! Omigod!” Emily shrieked, the incident roaring back in Technicolor. “Is he all right? Tell me, Doctor. He’s got to be all right—”

  “He’s alive,” Winslow interrupted, dropping the clipboard and taking Emily’s hands. “But he was critically injured. He’s still in surgery.”

  Emily was drowning in Branch’s blood. “Eight hours?”

  “Yes. He might go another eight. Or twenty. Nobody knows for sure.”

  “Got a minute, Chief?”

  Cross turned to the FBI agent. “Sure. Make any sense out of those case summaries?”

  “More than you might think,” the agent said, flipping to a yellow Post-It. “Operation is one of the girl’s games, right?”

  “She’s not a girl,” Cross said.

  “Whatever. I think there’s a connection between your Unsub and the murder of that Massachusetts trooper last Christmas….”

  Five minutes later Cross slapped the agent’s back, stopped at the auditorium to order the task force to nail down the connection, then headed for the hospital.

  Emily felt tired beyond anything she’d ever known. “I promised Branch he wouldn’t die,” she whispered. “I killed everyone else I ever loved. I’m not going to kill Branch, too. I won’t!”

  Winslow’s pager buzzed. She read the message, frowned. “I’m sorry, Emily, I have to deal with this. Try to get some sleep, and we’ll talk later.” She headed out the door, and Emily closed her eyes, murmuring the only prayer she could remember from catechism—“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”—but was interrupted at “the still waters” by a buttery baritone voice.

  “Branch is gonna make it, you know. He’s too damn ugly for heaven.”

  “It’s you!” she peeped, eyes popping open. “Thank God, it’s you!”

  “In the flesh,” Benedetti said. “Damn, you look fantastic!” He rushed to the bed and enveloped her, careful not to touch the bruises. Her eyes leaked tears, and he dried them with his thumbs. Then picked up her hands, kissing each passionately.

  “Hurts,” Emily groaned.

  “Oh, geez, sorry,” Benedetti said, dropping them like hot rocks.

  “It’s OK. It’s just everything feels like I went fifteen rounds with Godzilla.”

  “You did,” Benedetti said, scooting over a chair. “But you won. You’re alive.” His voice was husky with worry.

  She reached up and stroked his cheeks. “You’re alive, too,” she whispered. “Thank God, you’re alive…uh…” Oh, no. Her memory was so fried she couldn’t even remember the name of this wonderful man she’d just decided…Wait! It’s Marty! Martin Benedetti! Don’t forget!

  They talked, touching each other’s arms and hands, till Emily’s eyelids sagged. “Hospitals suck,” she murmured, shifting for the umpteenth time. “I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed.”

  “That’ll be awhile,” Benedetti said. “You’re going to a safe house when you’re released.”

  Emily flushed, anger trumping exhaustion. “You mean hiding.”

  “Tomato, tomahto. But we’ll talk about that later. First, we need to—”

  “I could kill Branch for not wearing his vest,” Emily whispered. Her eyes leaked again, but she had no strength to wipe. “I could just kill him.”

  “Me, too,” Benedetti agreed, handing her a Kleenex. They sat quietly, thinking private thoughts. Then Emily forced herself to remember. “He stole my knife, Marty,” she began, fragments appearing out of the fog. “The World War II bayonet of Daddy’s that I carry in my boot. The freak walked right up and took it. I couldn’t stop him because I couldn’t move.”

  Benedetti jotted notes. “Your handcuffs are also missing. Did he take those, too?”

  She shrugged, having no idea. “You know what’s weird? My gun. Why didn’t he take that? It was on the pavement, right in front of him. Why only my knife and cuffs?”

  “Guess we’re gonna find out.”

  She touched a bruise to make sure she was alive. Pain said yes. Her mind flicked to the strobe light of bullets flying from the Unsub’s weapon. “He shot so fast, Marty. What was it?”

  “A Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun,” Benedetti said. “Serious weapon. Expensive and hard to get unless you’re in law enforcement.”

  “Ammunition?”

  “Nine-millimeter ball. U.S. military surplus.”

  “He’s a soldier?” she said, stirring. “Marty! Maybe the Pentagon can tell us—”

  “Doesn’t mean squat,” Benedetti said, tugging at a sideburn. “Millions of civilians buy military surplus for target practice. It’s cheap and available worldwide. We know the manufacturer from the ejected shell casings. He’ll provide the distributor, who’ll give us the retailer. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “Smart as this guy’s been?”

  He didn’t contradict.

  She shifted uncomfortably. “If Branch got shot so many times, why isn’t he, uh, you know—”

  “More injured?”

  She appreciated his choice of words. “Right.”

  “Because of you. Your vest shielded his head, chest, and major organs, so the bullets struck only his lower body.”

  “Uh, the femoral artery, right?”

  He intertwined his fingers in hers. “Hey, your memory’s coming back!”

  “Hardly. Dr. Winslow told me,” she said. “I don’t remember any of it. From what she says, it’s a miracle he’s alive.”

  “You’re Branch’s miracle, Emily. You’re a hero. Especially to me.” He held her eyes a long time, electrifying her. Then sadness washed over his face. “But he’s got a long way to go.”

  “I know,” she said, sensing his anguish. “I’m so sorry, Marty. I know he’s a good friend.”

  “Best I ever had. The peckerwood.”

  She closed her eyes. “Tell me about his condition.”

  Benedetti cleared his throat. “He took six bullets. Four punched straight through, not touching anything important. High-speed puncture wounds, basically. One fractured his right hip. Docs already replaced it with titanium. Another tore the femoral artery. Docs fixed that, too. Cleaned out your fingernails while they were at it.” Grin. Fade. “Several deep lacerations but nothing stitches can’t handle. The repair of all that stuff is going unbelievably well.” He fell silent, looking away.

  “What stuff isn’t, Marty?”

  A long silence, then, “The bullet that broke his hip kept going. Into his spine.”

  “Spine…oh God!” Emily slapped a fist to her mouth. “Does that mean he’s—”

  “Yes.”

  Hope leaked like a punctured tire. “Is it permanent?” she asked, trying no
t to cry.

  “They don’t know yet. It sideswiped the vertebra, didn’t hit directly. So they’re hoping the paralysis is only temporary.” He tapped his foot several times. “Christ, it better be. Branch would rather eat his gun than be stuck in a wheelchair, shitting his diapers—” He cut himself off. “Aw, goddamn, your mom. I’m really sorry I said that.”

  “He’ll beat this, Marty,” she said. She couldn’t live with any other outcome. “Because he’s—”

  “Too ugly for Heaven. Right,” Benedetti said.

  “I was going to say he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to tease us.”

  Benedetti raised his eyebrows. “You told him about you and me?”

  “I was going to. That’s why I asked him to stop at the forest preserve. But he’d already figured it out.”

  “I’m not surprised. He’s always been a great detective,” Benedetti said. “Much better than me. But don’t tell him I said so. I’ll never hear the end of it.” He smiled crookedly. “You up for seeing Ken?”

  She tugged the blanket to her neck, looking around. “He’s here?”

  “Playing ringmaster to the media circus in the lobby.”

  She thought about it. “The chief would be fine,” she decided. “But nobody else. Especially no press.” She tried primping her hair, gave up. “I’m a wreck.”

  “You’re a vision,” Benedetti said, pulling out his phone.

  A few minutes later Cross limped in. “Now this is a sight for sore eyes,” he said, with more feeling than she’d ever remembered. “How do you feel?”

  “Pretty well, sir, considering.” She tried to sit up, but back spasms stopped her. “As long as I don’t move too fast.”

  “Physical pain goes away quickly,” Cross said. “The department’s trauma counselor will stop by tonight to help you cope with the rest.” He looked her over. “You’re a hero, Emily. A hundred cops want to shake your hand.”

  Emily looked at the ceiling. “I’m not. I had the Unsub in my sights, and I couldn’t get the job done.”

  Cross dragged a chair to the bed. “It wasn’t from lack of trying,” he said. “You hit him several times, according to the witnesses. But criminals buy body armor, too. His was probably a full combat package, helmet to boots, since your bullets didn’t faze him.”

  Emily recalled the Unsub’s hat covering everything down to his eyes. “So that’s why he didn’t stop when I hit him. He wore bulletproof…” Her eyelids dropped to half-mast.

  “Let’s go, Marty,” Cross said.

  “Just give me a minute to rest, sir,” Emily mumbled. “Wanna hear about the attack…gotta get back to work…fix up my house…”

  Cross smiled. “Don’t even think about that, Detective. You’re on fully paid medical leave till this is over. Public Works will maintain your house and yard, and Finance will handle your checkbook. Recovery is your only assignment. I expect you to give it your usual 110 percent.”

  Emily forced her eyes open. “I appreciate that, Chief. Please thank everybody for me. But I don’t need more time off. I’m fine. I’ve slept eight hours, and I’m ready for duty. Dr. Winslow will confirm I have no medical restrictions.”

  Cross shook his head. “No dice, Detective. I understand how you feel—”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Benedetti threw her a look that said, “Don’t push it,” but she was on a roll. “Chief, my head is on perfectly straight, and I have no intention of hiding. This man gunned down two cops in broad daylight. Shot up a crowd of civilians. He’s a killing machine. If I vanish, he’ll murder more innocents to flush me out. I can’t let that happen.” She slumped into her pillow, panting.

  Cross looked at Benedetti. “She’s right,” he said.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Can we protect her well enough?”

  Benedetti nodded.

  “All right then, Detective. You’re on the task force,” Cross said. “Under two nonnegotiable conditions. First, you overnight at the safe house to regain your bearings. Second, you don’t complain about the twenty-four-hour SWAT protection you’re getting. Not one peep. Till we catch the Unsub, all independent movement is null and void.”

  “Done.” She took a deep breath, released. “Has the task force learned anything yet?”

  Cross shifted to his other hip. “Yes. The blast at Neuqua High was no accident.”

  Benedetti’s eyebrows flew up. “When did BATFE determine that?”

  Emily looked confused.

  “The Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,” Cross explained to her. “BATFE. What used to be ATF before September 11.” Back to Benedetti. “Judy Stephens called on my way up here. The soil where the natural gas pipeline meets the school foundation contained plastic-explosive residue.”

  “What kind? Semtex?”

  “Judy thinks so. Her lab is still running tests. She theorizes the Unsub shimmied up the construction trench, set the bomb, and packed around enough dirt to ensure nobody found it. FBI and Homeland Security are ruling out terrorism, making our Unsub the most likely culprit.”

  “Then it was Timebomb,” Emily said. She counted on her fingers. “The sixth game.”

  “Seventh, I’m afraid,” Cross said. “The Operation game may be connected to last December’s torture slaying of a Massachusetts state trooper. Do you remember that case?”

  “No,” she admitted. “My memory is very spotty.”

  “Trauma batters the brain,” Cross said. “Makes hash of your memory. It happened to me when I got shot. The good news is it comes back. Not tomorrow, maybe not for weeks or months, but eventually, you’ll remember everything.” He looked at Benedetti, who took up the story.

  “They found the dead trooper in a wall tent. It was set up like a MASH unit, a detail they withheld from the media,” he said. “There was an operating table, lights, air tanks, scalpels, saws, everything you’d find in an operating room. Their Unsub handcuffed the trooper to the table and surgically removed ten organs—heart, solar plexus, rib, stomach, knee—”

  “Oh, that poor man!” Emily breathed, feeling herself shiver under the blanket.

  “Yeah,” Benedetti said. “Turns out the trooper’s organs match the plastic versions contained in the Operation game—Broken Heart, Bread Basket, Spare Ribs, Butterflies in Stomach, Water on the Knee, what have you. Nobody could have known then that it was a game, or that the two Unsubs are actually the same man. One of the FBI guys made the connection and told Ken.”

  Cross popped a throat lozenge. “This killer is far more cunning than we realized. To that end, I’ve asked the State Police to reinvestigate the deaths of your parents and husband.”

  Emily’s mouth fell open.

  “They may not have been the accidents they seemed at the time,” Benedetti explained.

  Cross turned his palm over and back. “It’s unlikely, I admit. But forensic science is far better than two decades ago. Especially DNA. We’ll run each case from scratch, see what we find. Because your birthday is so near, we and the feds agreed to leave out the usual interagency backstabbing. An FBI lab team is working with our CSIs, and Homeland Security will funnel our data through its worldwide intelligence networks. Dr. Marwood’s already working up a criminal profile.”

  “Marwood? Who’s that?” Emily asked.

  “Ellis Marwood. An industrial psychologist who worked on the Massachusetts case. He created their profile, so he’s familiar with how their Unsub thinks. He flew in several hours ago.”

  “Why not a profiler from the FBI?”

  “They’re swamped with terror assignments. They’ve contracted with Dr. Marwood many times and highly recommend him. Plus he can stay as long as we need.” He looked at Emily. “I’m running the task force personally and named Marty my chief investigator.”

  “Only till Branch is back,” Benedetti said.

  “Goes without saying,” Cross said. “Local, federal, state, and county law enforcement are all on board
. The University of Illinois made its supercomputer available for data crunching. As I mentioned, there’s the profiler. Anybody I’m forgetting, Marty?”

  “Me,” Emily answered.

  Cross smiled. “Couldn’t do this without you.” He pulled a badge from his pocket and placed it on her blanket.

  She stared. It was gold instead of silver. “Detective” instead of “officer.” Her eyes filled. “Thanks, Chief,” she whispered.

  “You earned it,” Cross said. “Any more questions?”

  She strained to remember the shooting scene. “I think there was a white minivan?”

  “Yes. It was stolen from long-term parking at O’Hare Airport, abandoned in a subdivision near the forest preserve entrance. We assume the Unsub had a second vehicle prepositioned.”

  “Where did he leave my police card? In the van?”

  Benedetti surprised her by saying, “He didn’t leave one. And the scenario doesn’t match your games, or any on that Web site. I don’t think this was part of his master plan. It was spur of the moment, a twist he hadn’t scripted.”

  Emily nodded as another fragment shook loose. “The Unsub couldn’t have known to stash a getaway vehicle, Chief. We didn’t know we were going to McDowell till we reached River Road.”

  “Damn. It was inside the van,” Cross said. “Had to be.”

  “Something small,” Benedetti agreed. “Bicycle. Motorcycle. Dirt bike.”

  “Electric scooter,” Cross guessed. “Doesn’t stand out, because they’re so common. Allows him to wear helmet and goggles to cloak his appearance, detour through fields or parking lots. He drives outside the roadblock zone and transfers to a third vehicle.” He pursed his lips. “This man is well prepared.”

  “But not invincible,” Benedetti said. “If he’d made just one mistake at the parking lot…”

  “That’s his Achilles’ heel,” Emily said. “He left the script because of his obsession with me, and he’ll do it again. That’s when we’ll get him.” She thumbed her morphine button, felt the velvet hammer of the opiate soothe her joints. “What…now?” she croaked, wondering who’d stolen her voice.

  Cross looked at her with fresh concern. “You rest. When you’re discharged tonight, you go to the safe house.” He pointed to the SWAT cops crowding her doorway. “These are your new best friends, Detective. Sergeant Bates leads your protective team. She’s at the safe house already.”