by D P Lyle
Mississippi John Hurt sang “I Been Cryin’ Since You Been Gone” through the outdoor speakers.
I sat at the table across from T-Tommy. “What’ve you got?”
“I had some guys contact medical and pharmaceutical supply companies in the area.” He slid a piece of paper to me. “Here’s some of the shit Talbert’s bought over the twenty-four months.”
The list went like this:
Oxygen cylinders, masks, and tubing
Surgical drapes
Bandages
EKG paper
Sutures
IV lines and fluids
Urinary catheters and bags
Two ventilators
Antibiotics, potassium chloride, morphine, fentanyl, and several other anesthetic agents
“Smells like a surgical setup to me,” I said.
“Looks that way.” He turned the plans toward me. “I think I know where they’re holding Claire.”
I studied the schematics. It was always amazing when something you’d looked at dozens of times suddenly took on a new meaning. You saw it differently. Made connections that should have been obvious. “Here?” I pointed to a small interior room.
T-Tommy nodded. “Plans say it’s got a steel-reinforced door. Walls are solid cinder block. No windows. Pretty tight prison.”
“That’s got to be it.”
T-Tommy flattened his palms on the table, leaning on them. “You want to slip in and sniff around or go straight at them balls to the wall?”
I hated these kinds of decisions. Ones where the information at hand was fractured and fuzzy and you could only guess the right path. Ones where the wrong choice could be a disaster. Ones where errors in judgment could haunt you forever. I lost Jill because I didn’t show up where and when I said I would. I failed her. I couldn’t fail Claire.
“Where do we go in?” I asked.
T-Tommy smiled and slid another of the blue-line drawings toward me. A floor plan for the lower floor. He pointed to a series of windows along the side of the building. They opened into a hallway that fronted the newly constructed ORs or ICUs or whatever they were and the room we believed to be a holding cell. “This is a ventilation grate. It’s four by four. Opens right into the hallway. Probably easier to open than one of the windows. Probably no locks. Few screws around it.”
If we made it into that hallway undetected, we might be able to get Claire out without a fuss. Even if we ran into a couple of bad guys, it could still work. But if we ran into an entire posse, this deal could go way south.
The phone rang. We exchanged glances, and I walked to the kitchen counter and answered.
“Walker?” Same voice.
“I’m here.”
“Good boy. I want you—”
“I want to talk to Claire.”
“Not a chance.”
“I want proof she’s still alive.”
“Want me to send you one of her tits?”
“Listen, you—”
“No. You listen. You want to see her again you shut the fuck up.”
I did.
“I want you and Tortelli walking down David Douglass Road. Out off Kelly Spring Road. Like Tweedledee and Tweedle-fucking-dum. Ten sharp. Don’t be late.”
“We won’t.”
“Unarmed. If I even smell the cops, she’s dead.”
“I believe you.”
“You fucking better.” He waited for my response, but I didn’t give him one. “Ten sharp. Clear?”
“We’ll be there.” He hung up.
CHAPTER 78
WEDNESDAY 9:50 P.M.
T-TOMMY AND I WALKED NORTH ON DAVID DOUGLASS ROAD, AN uneven, patched-up blacktop. We passed a sleeping farmhouse. Behind it a windmill squeaked and ticked against a soft breeze, rich with the aroma of honeysuckle. A layer of clouds shut out the moon, and the stars and the darkness deepened. The words completely isolated came to mind. The guys waiting for us could be anywhere. I imagined the red dot of a laser site on the back of my head. It burned.
The plan was simple. T-Tommy and I would do exactly as they said. Walk right into their trap. Let them take us wherever they wanted. Hopefully to where Claire was being held. That would put us next to her where we could protect her when the shit went down.
The last instructions from that German-sounding dude changed everything. Had he jerked us around some more, not arranged a meet, then slipping in the side grate at Talbert made sense. But when he told us to come here, north of the city and miles from Talbert and nowhere near civilization, we had to scrap that idea. Claire could be out here somewhere. In the trunk of a car. In some abandoned farmhouse. Maybe even the dark one we had just walked past. Maybe she was tied to a tree in one of the many wooded areas. Maybe she was already dead. I didn’t believe it and still held to the notion that Talbert was the best bet. Couldn’t be sure, so we needed a more flexible strategy.
T-Tommy reached out to Furyk. Furyk, seeing a way out of this, agreed with the setup we had devised. One thing about Furyk, he always did what was best for him. Right now, that was just what T-Tommy and I needed.
HPD officers Derrick Stone and Glenn Stanhope sat in an unmarked car back near the junction of Kelly Spring Road and the Ardmore Highway. To leave this area we’d have to go right past them. They would follow. Make sure we were going to Talbert and if not lead the cavalry to wherever we ended up. The cavalry was Furyk, a handful of uniforms, and a SWAT team. They were waiting half a mile away just off the Ardmore Highway, ready to move when Stone called.
Of course, if this went badly, Furyk would lay it off on Tortelli. If it went well and his troops stormed the bastille and saved the maiden, Furyk would be a hero. We didn’t particularly like either choice, but what the hell. Getting Claire out was all that mattered. If Furyk got to play hero, then so be it.
As we walked deeper into the darkness, we both knew this could go sideways in a heartbeat. We were sitting ducks. Birds on a wire. Canaries in a coal mine. Take your pick. They could take us down at any time, and we’d never see it coming.
But it didn’t feel that way.
Too bad life didn’t have background music. If it did, would we now be hearing the dirgelike droning of impending doom or something brighter? Something indicating that the conquering heroes were triumphantly entering the bad guy’s lair? Could go either way. We were betting on the hero’s march.
The road crossed a narrow creek, embraced on each bank by a thick hedgerow. Not far from the end now. When we crested a modest rise, we were suddenly bathed in light as headlamps and a roof-mounted light bar from a vehicle a hundred feet away sprang to life.
“Hands where I can see them.” The voice was that of the caller. Same guttural Germanic accent.
I shielded my eyes and could just make out a shape near what appeared to be some kind of SUV. No, two shapes. One thin, the other large and thick. Lefty and Austin.
“Fancy meeting you guys here,” I said. “Rocco come with you?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Lefty said. “Hands on top of your heads, fingers laced.”
We did.
Another shadow emerged from the darkness to our left. “Don’t move.” The German stepped behind us and patted us down. “Clean,” he said.
Austin and Lefty came forward, the light behind them casting them in silhouette. Austin stopped a good twenty feet away from me and pointed a gun at my head. Lefty did the same to T-Tommy.
“Nothing cute now,” Lefty said. “Go ahead, Karl.”
Karl Reinhardt. Security at Talbert. Looked like we had it pegged right. It also meant that when this went down it wouldn’t be some slappy fight. This was the real deal. Austin, Lefty, Karl, probably Rocco, and God knew who else. Not good odds, but it was what it was.
Karl nudged my shoulder. “Hands behind your back.”
I did, and he bound my wrists together with a plastic loop. He then moved to T-Tommy and did the same.
They loaded us into the middle seat of a Chevy Suburban. Lefty drove, and Austi
n rode shotgun. He twisted in the seat, gun aimed at my face. Karl sat behind us, his gun resting against the back of T-Tommy’s neck.
CHAPTER 79
WEDNESDAY 10:54 P.M.
AUSTIN LED US THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR OF TALBERT BIOMEDICAL and down a dark hallway. We were now on the clock. We had exactly thirty minutes to find Claire, set the stage, and wait for the cavalry to surprise the bad guys.
Finding Claire turned out to be easy. They took us right to her.
She was in the newly constructed operating room. Her ankles and wrists were strapped to a table beneath a circular bank of surgical lights. Kincaid, Talbert, and Rocco stood over her completely nude body.
“You okay?” I asked.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Be cool,” I said. “It’ll be all right.”
Austin shoved me toward the far wall where two metal folding chairs sat side by side. “Sit down. Don’t say a fucking word.”
I dropped into one chair, T-Tommy the other. I went to work on the plastic cuffs, moving my wrists back and forth, creating a little play.
Kincaid stood before us. “You two have proven to be a problem. That’ll end tonight.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Nothing. I have everything I need.” He waved a hand at Claire. “Another subject for my work.” He turned back to us. “And the only two loose ends.”
Flattening my palms together, I levered my wrists apart. The plastic dug into my flesh, but I could feel it loosening, stretching. Not much, but I didn’t need much.
Kincaid smiled and rubbed his hands together. “So, let’s get to work.”
He and Talbert moved to the corner and tugged a plastic cover off some mechanical device. It was the size of the chair I sat in and seemed to be constructed of a haphazard arrangement of metallic tubes. It rested on a rolling platform, which the two men wheeled to where Claire lay. Austin helped them lift the device and attach it to the edges of the table. It straddled Claire’s body.
I could feel the fear grow within her, her eyes wide, her chest heaving. “What the hell is this?” she asked.
Kincaid gave her a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “All in good time.”
I wanted to kill him. Actually I wanted to hurt him. Bad. Then kill him.
I continued working on the cuffs. The band cut deeply into my flesh, and I felt blood trickle down into one palm.
It took about five minutes for them to set the device up. The contraption was straight out of the old black-and-white sci-fi movies I used to watch on late-night TV. It looked like a giant mechanical spider, four legs grasping the edges of the table and as many as six others pointing directly at Claire. I almost expected a drooling, metallic-toothed mouth to begin devouring her at any minute.
Kincaid connected electrical and computer cables to it, then moved to the computer that sat on a desk along the wall. He made a few keystrokes, dramatically tapping the last one. He moved toward Claire.
The device jerked into motion. Claire flinched. One of the metal spider legs lowered and brushed against her flesh. She recoiled from the contact.
“Once Robbie begins his work, I’d advise against any movement,” Kincaid said.
I saw sweat slick Claire’s skin. “What the fuck is that?” I asked.
Kincaid turned to me. “An Automated Robotic Surgical Device. Or ARSD, if you prefer. We call him Auto-Rob. Sometimes Robbie. Isn’t he beautiful?”
No, he’s not, I wanted to say. He’s a hideous-looking monster. “What is it?”
“He’s my creation. And Ms. McBride’s surgeon.”
“You’re crazy.”
Kincaid stepped closer and looked down at me. His eyes cold, his jaw fixed. “Do you think a crazy man could build such a device that will alter medicine forever?” He smiled. “The truth is that you are all lucky. Your lives will actually be worth something. Like the others, you’ll help perfect this amazing device.” He moved over to Claire. “Don’t worry. We’ll numb things up for the actual operation. Most of it, anyway.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked. Her voice was high-pitched, filled with fear.
“Leave her alone,” I said.
Lefty stuck the muzzle of his nine against my cheek. “All I need is an excuse.”
“Twenty-two minutes,” Stone said to Stanhope. He punched a number into his cell and waited for an answer. When it came, he said, “Going in now.”
“We’re all set,” Furyk said.
Stone approached the fence that surrounded Talbert. He took a last look around, scaled the fence, and dropped to the ground on the other side. Stanhope followed.
CHAPTER 80
WEDNESDAY 11:07 P.M.
KINCAID TURNED TO T-TOMMY AND ME. “YOU ARE ABOUT TO WITNESS a true miracle of modern medicine. I’m sure you’ll find this quite fascinating.”
When neither of us responded, he frowned.
Good. Get angry, asshole.
His frown faded, and he smiled. As if he were a college professor, I was an underachieving student, and he was attempting to explain something I should be eager to learn.
Fuck you, Professor.
“Robbie is getting very good at the surgery.” Kincaid caressed one of the device’s metallic legs. “He can execute many different procedures without my help. A truly revolutionary invention.” With dramatic flair he paused as if awaiting some flash of divine wisdom. “Imagine if you will that you are in darkest Africa. Or perhaps at a research station in the Antarctic or in a remote war zone. Maybe even an outpost on the moon. I assume you know that NASA is planning to return there and establish permanent settlements.”
I knew but said nothing. Just keep talking.
“And when they do, we’ll be ready.” He was getting into it now, adopting the professorial walk. The one every overly tenured professor I ever saw used. Back and forth, occasionally glancing at the ceiling as if recalling something from his brilliant mind, glancing now and then at the class. That would be us. “I want you to further assume . . .”
Further assume? What kind of crap is this?
“. . . that you needed some lifesaving surgical procedure. It could be an appendectomy, a gallbladder removal, or a tumor resection.” Kincaid opened his arms toward us, as if inviting us into his world. “Would you have a surgeon with you? Not likely.”
T-Tommy’s face remained expressionless, his jaw fixed. Austin and Lefty seemed to be wrapped up in Kincaid’s tale, so his lecture wasn’t a total waste.
I guessed we had another fifteen minutes. I could sense T-Tommy working on his cuffs. I grasped the tail—the leftover part of the plastic after it had been pulled tight around my wrists—between the index and middle finger of my left hand. This would prevent it from falling to the floor when it broke, giving away the fact that I was free. I nestled my right fist into my left palm. Keeping my left hand firm, I levered my right forearm upward. The plastic band gave a little more. Again I pressed against it and felt it weaken. I relaxed. One more good crank, and it would snap.
Stone spun out the last screw, lifted the ventilation grate from its mooring, and placed it on the ground behind him. He stuck his head inside and looked both ways. The corridor was dark except for light spilling from somewhere about a hundred feet to his left.
He slipped through the window and dropped to the floor. After Stanhope did the same, they crept down the hall until they neared the source of the light . . . a window. Stone crouched and moved toward it.
CHAPTER 81
WEDNESDAY 11:11 P.M.
“AUTO-ROB IS THE BEST SURGEON IN THE WORLD,” KINCAID SAID.
“And he does the entire procedure on his own. So, you can carry your surgeon with you in a suitcase wherever you go.”
“You mean this thing actually cuts on people?” T-Tommy asked.
“Yes.”
“On its own?”
Kincaid smiled. He obviously thought T-Tommy was actually interested. Divert and conquer.
“Auto-Rob can perform seventeen different procedures. Flawlessly, as you will see. Soon he’ll do many, many more.”
“I have a question,” I said.
Kincaid’s eyes lit up. “Yes?”
“Why all this? Why torture innocent people this way?”
“We’re not the only ones working in this arena. It’s a race. The winner, the one who creates a truly self-contained robotic surgeon, will make hundreds of millions.”
“Are your competitors kidnapping young women, too?”
“That’s why they will lose.” Kincaid frowned. “You, of all people, should know how the feds and the FDA can fuck up research. Put hurdles and regulations in the way. Stagnate the process. We’ll cut ten years off the R and D time. Save a fortune in the process. Flash past the finish line before our competitors even know we’re in the race.”
Megalomania just didn’t seem strong enough.
Kincaid turned to his creation. “Robbie uses lasers to do the actual cutting. Cleaner and less bleeding. The problem we are having is with anesthesia. Right now we need an anesthetist present to put the patient to sleep.”
“That sort of limits its use, doesn’t it?” I said. Keep him talking.
“Right you are.” Kincaid smiled at me. I was his favorite student now. “We’re working on a system. Sort of anesthesia as you go.” He touched the end of one of the spider’s legs. “Using a combination of micropicolated drugs, basically an aerosol or mist, and high-frequency sound waves. The sound waves confuse the nerves, alter their ability to transmit pain signals. The drug does the rest, completely blocking the transmissions. The chemical we use is an analog of lidocaine. Soaks into the tissues and goes to work almost instantly. The patient doesn’t have to be put to sleep.”
“Until you’re through with them,” I said.
His face hardened. “Progress always comes at a price.”
That’s it. Focus on me. “Just so you aren’t paying it, right?”
Lefty slammed his fist into my temple, knocking me against T-Tommy. As T-Tommy shouldered me upright, I felt more than heard the plastic snap. He was free.
