Bex Wynter Box Set 2

by Elleby Harper

  She ran her tongue over her lips in a mouth gone dry with terror. Could she trust Dresden’s promise? Did she have any choice? In a croaking voice Bex said, “You’re right. There’s no password. You can download the software immediately. So now will you disarm the bombs?”

  Dresden’s shoulders loosened as she visibly relaxed. Everything had gone her way.

  “I’m willing to give you the opportunity to disarm the bombs.”

  Bex felt her nerves kick up a notch. What did Dresden mean? Would she have to find the right wires to cut with a deadline ticking down?

  “I’m listening.”

  “Have a closer look at the vests. Do you see a one inch red X marked on both of them above the heart?”

  Bex peered hard in their direction, noting the marks Dresden mentioned.

  “Directly beneath that mark is the mechanism to disarm both bombs. You can hit either vest, it doesn’t matter, the result will be the same. As long as you hit the target hard enough there will be no explosion.”

  Bex felt a leap of hope. Cole would forgive her if she had to punch him in the chest, she was sure.

  “Ah, I see your spirits soar at my words. I have to warn you there is a catch. First, I want you to disrobe. I can’t rely on you not having a phone or a weapon on you.”

  Bex unzipped her jacket, throwing it and her cap to the ground.

  “Shirt, shoes and jeans as well.”

  Bex did as Dresden ordered, unlacing her shoes to kick them off before shedding her jeans and shirt. The air conditioning was cool to her skin and she couldn’t stave off a shiver. She watched as Dresden set the phone against a gurney where she could read the digits. 10:00:00.

  “You’re right-handed aren’t you?”

  Bex nodded, while Dresden pulled out a cable tie.

  “Hold your left arm against the steel bars behind you.”

  Confused, Bex hesitated. How was she going to punch Cole if Dresden tied her twenty feet away from him? Dresden frowned, her impatience showing, and flicked her gun hand at Bex. Backing against the massive stainless steel frame, she held her left arm aloft and Dresden tightened the restraint. She had movement up and down the pole but couldn’t get any closer to the two men.

  “This is how it works. I’m going to take your father’s technology to Tomei who tells me he’s capable of uploading the software to Lander’s exoskeleton. He can do that offsite, so there’s no need for the three of us to hang around the hospital.”

  Bex could see Dresden was relishing her role in this drama. Her eyes compressed into excited pinpoints, her lips held the trace of a smile.

  “You’ll be able to see the countdown from here. You’ll have ten minutes. As I told you, the mechanism to disarm the bomb lies behind the two Xs on the vests. Either one can stop the explosion by being hit with sufficient velocity. The amount of force generated by, say, a bullet. A bullet piercing the X on the vest will disarm everything. You have ten minutes to decide who dies to save a thousand people.

  “Personally, I would choose to save the life of my colleague, but you may choose differently. As it looks like you know sonny boy, that does make the decision more poignant for you.”

  Bex felt Dresden’s words crash over her.

  “Wait, wait! I don’t think I understand.”

  She watched the older woman fiddle with the phone.

  “Oh, I think you understand perfectly well. Shoot Cole and the bomb stops. Everyone but Cole survives. Shoot the kid and everyone but the stray dog survives. It’s a simple choice, but an effective one, don’t you think? You see I learnt from our last encounter that saving the young, the impressionable, the vulnerable was more important to you than saving your own skin.

  “When I guessed you were with your father this evening, it was a simple matter to devise this strategy. You’re too easy to read, Wynter. I knew you’d put yourself in harm’s way if you thought you could save someone. But you see, letting you sacrifice yourself would be too easy a solution. This way you have to sacrifice someone else to save your life and everyone else’s.”

  Dresden gripped the revolver in her left hand, thumbing open the cylinder latch. Her blood running like ice in her veins, Bex watched as Dresden unloaded five bullets. She spun the cylinder once to ensure the other chambers were empty before snapping it back into the gun frame. Bex heard the soft snick of the latch locking into position. Dresden placed the gun on the floor, just beyond Bex’s grasping hand.

  “You have one bullet, one chance. I trust your aim is still good even after so long away from bearing arms.”

  She picked up Bex’s and Cole’s clothing and belongings and dumped them into one of the troughs attached to the wall, and well out of reach, on her way out.

  “Dresden, please don’t do this. For thirty years you upheld the law. You can’t discard thirty years of your life as a police officer to become a cold-blooded killer!”

  “What I learnt in thirty years on the job is that upholding the law doesn’t ensure justice happens. There are too many no-good tossers running free out there because of money-grabbing lawyers gaming the judicial system and getting good evidence thrown out of court that could convict their guilty clients. I’ve never intentionally killed an innocent party. You know that. All my victims deserved to die.”

  “You won’t be able to say that after today! You’ve rigged a bomb to kill nothing but innocent victims!”

  Bex’s words stopped Dresden in her tracks.

  “You’ve got it wrong. I’m not going to be the killer here. You have eight minutes and forty two seconds to shoot either Cole or Kristian. This is your killing time, Wynter.”

  Chapter 32

  Columbus General Hospital

  Thursday, 26 April

  Abruptly Bex felt her world shift, as though her focus and clarity had been stripped to the essentials. The coruscating light heightened her senses. She felt as though her sweeping glance encompassed the entire space and everything within it. She knew exactly what she had to do.

  Dresden’s shadow fell over her as she walked past. Bex ignored it, concentrating on stretching her hand towards the revolver, pulling tight against her bound arm. Her nails scrabbled against the hard linoleum, her fingers straining. She tugged harder, almost wrenching her shoulder socket, the cable tie biting into flesh like barbed wire. A fingertip touched the gun grip. She nudged the striated plastic, inching the butt close enough for her thumb to get purchase. Wrapping her fingers fully around the grip, she felt her palm caress the gun. It had been months since she had held one, but it felt like a natural extension of her arm.

  The seconds on the clock ticked on in slow motion, 8:20:03.

  Dresden’s footfalls were a soft slap against the hard flooring.

  “Kill me, Bex!” Cole shouted. He had ripped his cheek open scraping the duct tape from his mouth. “Hurry! Don’t wait! I don’t want to wait! Shoot me now!”

  “Don’t worry, dude, she’s not going to kill you. It’s me she’s going to sacrifice. Not that I give a damn. That cow stole the ambulance that was going to save my mom’s life, so you might as well take mine as well!”

  As if from a far distance she heard Kristian’s rebuttal. She shut out their words. The sounds were simply a distraction for what she had to do.

  Still kneeling on the floor, Bex swiveled in Dresden’s direction. Dresden’s attention didn’t so much as flicker towards the arguing men. Bex could see she was headed, not for the main double doors, but towards the illuminated emergency exit. Bex calculated she was less than five steps from escaping.

  Raising one knee, Bex rested her elbow on it, sighting down the barrel. She took a deep breath and did her best to steady her right arm. Normally she would support it with her left hand but that was out of the question.

  This was a lighter gun than her Glock and the grip was shorter and more compact. She wasted precious seconds adjusting to the differences and accommodating them. She only had one bullet and she couldn’t afford to miss.

  Three
fingers and her thumb curled around the grip while her index finger squeezed the trigger.

  The explosion shattered against her eardrums, but she was trained not to flinch. Her eyes never left her target so she saw Dresden go down with a crash. She was close enough to the exit that her head struck the door with a sound like a wet thud, while in the space where her body had been, a thin red mist lingered in the air.

  Chapter 33

  Columbus General Hospital

  Thursday, 26 April

  Bex’s eyes darted to the clock. 7:47:22.

  Letting the adrenaline crash through her, she was dimly aware of Cole struggling to maneuver himself and Kristian so he could get a view past the massive autoclave around which his arms were stretched. The attached cuffs kept him firmly in position.

  “What the hell? Did you just shoot Dresden? Is that what you did? How does that help us? Unless you’ve got another bullet in there you’ve just condemned all of us to death!”

  His recriminations grated against her ears, but she ignored him. Even though it was empty, she took care setting the gun down on the ground. She called out to the female paramedic cuffed to one of the stainless steel shelving units at the far end of their enclosure.

  “Ma’am! Please, ma’am! Can you answer me?”

  “Bex, why the hell didn’t you just shoot me?”

  “Not now, Cole. Ma’am, please! Please, open your eyes. I need something in the shelving unit above you.”

  “My name’s Rachel. Rachel Bates.” The woman pushed damp tendrils of hair away from her face. Her eyes were still glazed, but Bex was pleased to see she was making an effort to focus on her.

  “Rachel, hello. I need your help. Can you see that thing on the top shelf, like a long stick with a ball on top?”

  With an effort, the woman pushed herself onto her knees, craning her neck upwards. She pointed. “You mean the hip replacement implant?”

  “That’s the one! Can you toss it towards me? Throw it as hard as you can in my direction!”

  With both hands bound, Rachel grasped the implement. With an awkward movement she sent it skittering across the floor towards Bex. It came to rest near her foot and she reached out a hand.

  “Bex, what the bloody hell are you doing?”

  She ignored the tension lacing Cole’s voice.

  “I need everyone to be quiet while I figure this out.”

  She was aware of three sets of eyes following her every move. Bex took a few seconds to examine the artificial ball and socket joint, finally managing to unscrew the metallic cap to reveal the ball socket underneath. She wiggled the ball away. It wasn’t a complete ball, more like half a sphere. She weighed it in her hand.

  While Dresden had been talking, Bex’s eyes had skipped over the various instruments sitting in wire baskets round them and she had noticed what she thought was a metallic ball. Her teeth sank into her lower lip. She had made a split second decision based on inaccurate information. Would a half sphere work as well as a ball? She didn’t have that data in her head.

  5:38:43. The numbers flashed at her as tenths of seconds kept ticking away.

  She faced Cole. Blood smeared one cheek and beaded over his lips where the duct tape hung down, still attached to his skin. Sweat coated his forehead. The bright overhead light highlighted the gray flecks in the springy, black hair.

  She kept her attention on him because she couldn’t bear to look at Kristian. He was too much of a ghost, his features and eyes hurtful reminders of Zane. She sucked in another breath, the sound blending with the thumping of her heart and the soft whimpers coming from Rachel.

  “Do you think Dresden’s lying?” she asked Cole.

  “You mean do I think she’s lying about shooting one of us to stop the bomb detonating? That I don’t know. I certainly don’t think she’s fooling us about the vests containing explosive. They’re heavy enough to feel real.” Cole paused, his eyes digging into her. “Is that why you shot her? Because you think she’s condemned us no matter what, and you didn’t want her to escape again?”

  “She’s capable of doing that. Getting me to shoot someone I care about only to discover it was for nothing.” She fingered the metal hemisphere, knowing it had been impossible for her to decide who lived and who died.

  She saw Cole’s eyes cut to the smart phone. 4:45:34.

  “Have you got a plan, Bex? What’s hiding in that steel trap of a mind?”

  “I used to be pretty good at pitching. My coach said I was one of the best at being able to control the height, location and velocity of my pitch. I was also very consistent. Some pitchers hit on track, but not every time. My coach used to say my delivery was regular as clockwork. And you’re only twenty feet away not sixty.”

  “You intend to throw that thing you’re holding? It’s not a proper ball.”

  “Dresden said the target had to be hit at a specific velocity. The formula for kinetic energy is the same, whether it’s a bullet or baseball. The very best pitchers can throw around a hundred miles per hour. I can’t pitch that fast. And I don’t know how hard the target needs to be hit because bullets travel at different speeds depending on a lot of factors.”

  2:59:03.

  “You think you can throw that thing with enough force to trigger the disarming mechanism?”

  “I’m going to throw it fast enough so it will hurt like hell, Cole. Maybe break a rib or two. And I can’t guarantee that it still won’t kill you. When I was seven, a kid on my team was hit in the chest with a baseball and died. The doctors said it was because hitting near the heart threw his heart rhythm off. If the ball hits you in the wrong spot during the fifteen milliseconds between beats, the heart quits beating. It simply quivers in the chest and no longer pumps blood into the body. They call it commotion cordis. CPR was useless to revive him.” Bex paused. Was this the moment to tell him he was going to be a father? If she didn’t do it now, she might never get the opportunity. “Cole.”

  Something in her voice alerted him to her changed attitude. She saw his eyes soften as they rested on her, his lips quirk into the lop-sided smile she had grown accustomed to.

  “Ah, hen, don’t tell me you’re going to miss me.”

  She blinked her eyes to clear the mist of tears. No, she couldn’t tell him now! How cruel would that be!

  “Cole, I’m looking forward to our weekend in the country.”

  “Aye, hen, we’ll have a tidy time of it. It’ll be pure barry, as my gran would say.”

  “For God’s sake, just lob the freaking ball!” Kristian screamed. “If you’re worried about your boyfriend, hit me!”

  All the time she had been talking, Bex had been turning the hemisphere between her fingers, playing with it, getting to know its curves and flat points. She braced herself, cocking back her arm, turning it so her palm swung upwards and over as she warmed up the muscles. Once, twice.

  Her focus narrowed to the X on Cole’s vest, her cocked arm unwinding in a whirl. It snapped forward in a blur of motion as she released the metal object. It shot through the space between them and hit with a crack of sound.

  Cole was flung backward against the cabinet he was attached to, his head jerking against the metal side, before his body slid down dragging Kristian with him.

  Bex shot a look at the clock.

  0:48:12.

  She waited, but the numbers didn’t budge. The clock had stopped ticking.

  Chapter 34

  Columbus General Hospital

  Thursday, 26 April

  “Holy crap, did it work?” Kristian asked.

  He was slumped, arms hugging the autoclave, bound to Cole’s unmoving form. Bex turned her attention to the shelving unit she was shackled to, riffling through instruments until she found a pair of medical shears within reach. Using her right hand she inserted the blade between her skin and the nylon cable tie. One quick snip and she was free.

  She flung down the shears, upending more wire baskets in her search for something substantial enough to cut th
rough the metal handcuffs binding Cole and Kristian. Clutching a hacksaw, she crossed to the stainless steel sterilizer, her hand reaching to feel for a pulse in Cole’s neck.

  Relief flooded her as she felt it flutter strongly under her fingertips.

  “Cole, can you hear me?”

  He emitted a groan. “Blinking ’eck, woman, I swear you must have steel muscles.”

  When he raised his head she could see a lump already swelling under his hair.

  “I think the force of the blow must’ve bashed your head against the metal surface and knocked you out for a few seconds.”

  While she spoke she started sawing through the flexible chain link of one set of handcuffs. These were the type of cuffs she was most used to, rather than the rigid speedcuffs favored at the London Met. She had no doubt Dresden had picked them up locally. Within a few minutes both bracelets had been separated.

  “Kristian, can you manage to snip the cable ties? I want to check on Dresden and then get some medical help down here.”

  Stopping only to rummage once more among the medical instruments, Bex hurried towards the emergency exit with a scalpel in hand. She couldn’t be sure Dresden didn’t have another weapon on her.

  She had aimed for Dresden’s upper thigh, to stop her flight without killing her, but the spray of blood she had seen made it likely she had hit the femoral artery. Alarm rose as she moved closer to where she expected to see Dresden lying. Instead she saw streaks of blood but no body. Had Dresden been able to drag herself out and walk up the stairs? Bex threw open the door, while remaining against the opposite wall, providing no target if Dresden was armed. With the door open, she heard dragging footsteps and risked a sideways glance around the doorjamb.

  The interior steps were plain concrete, edged with red-painted hand railings. One flight ran up to a landing before twisting back on itself in a U-shape continuing to a fire escape door to the ground level. Peering upwards she could see a pair of legs in baggy gray coveralls on the upper flight. Poking from beneath the pants legs were ankles encased in power actuators and dangling down his back was Sophie Dresden’s torso and arms. It had to be Lander Dresden!