The Good Soldier

by L. T. Ryan

  "Think he'll buy that?" I said.

  Frank laughed. He had relaxed. Thinking tactically took his mind off of the danger presented every time I blew through a red light, like I was about to do at that moment.

  I sped up as I approached the light. The faint glow of headlights approaching from the cross street started to light up the recesses of the intersection, like the sun coming up over a mountain. You stand below, in the shadows, watching the light fill up every corner but the one you stand on. Until it finally stares you down and bathes you with its radiance. I pushed the car faster, glancing at the speedometer and noting that it read one-ten. The cop car lagged behind, as I hoped it would.

  We hit the intersection, dipped and bounced. I turned my head slightly to the left and saw the headlights, up close and personal. It looked like a collision was unavoidable. The other car's horn blared. Tires squealed. I watched in the side mirror. Time slowed down and I saw the event unfold in stills instead of fluidly. The other car, possibly a big old Buick, skidded toward us, narrowly missing the rear quarter panel, spun then stopped in the middle of the intersection. I pushed the gas harder. One-fifteen. Another set of tires produced another squealing sound as a result of the friction between rubber and asphalt. I looked into the rearview mirror. Blue light silhouetted the big old Buick. I anticipated a crash, but didn't hear one. I didn't bother to check the rearview mirror again. At least, not until the blue lights began their second approach.

  Chapter 14

  By my estimation, we were less than two minutes from the hospital. The cop car had fallen behind. There were only a couple intersections with lights remaining, no turns, open highway to the front doors of the ER, practically. I pushed the car even harder. The engine gurgled at first, then roared with a burst, and finally settled back into a steady hum.

  Under a minute remained. The streetlights flew by in a blur. The hospital approached, small, like a scale building on a model railroad track, rising and growing as we approached. I began to slow down and the blue lights began to close in. No worries, though. They'd have to slow down the same as us.

  The entrance to the hospital parking lot came up quick. I yanked the wheel to the right and hit the brakes and the car turned and skidded into the lot, narrowly missing a parked car. Forty had been too fast for the turn and I made a mental note of it. I slowed down, found the entrance to the emergency room, slammed on the brakes in front of the automatic double doors. Before the car came to a complete stop, I threw it into park, causing it to jerk and shudder. Sarah went face first into Frank's seat and then slammed back into her own. I didn't wait around to make sure she was OK. Strobing blue lights reflected off surrounding buildings and the sound of the cruiser's sirens were deafeningly close.

  I flung my door open and raced around the front of our car. The smell emanating from the vehicle was a mixture of a gas station and a tire factory. I wondered if it would be in good enough shape to leave in. I left the car behind and headed for the covered entrance. The automatic glass doors couldn't part fast enough. I managed to slam my right shoulder into one of them, knocking it off track with a loud rattling sound.

  "Hey," a woman at the receiving desk next to the doors said to me. "What the hell?"

  I ignored her and ran to the nurses' station.

  "Help you?" a plump nurse with red cheeks said. Too many late night shifts, I figured, as well as too many dinners from a vending machine.

  "Tammy Nockowitz," I said through heavy breaths. I hadn't run far, but I'd sprinted, and possibly winded myself when I slammed into the door. It was then that I noticed a burning sensation on my right side, below my chest.

  "She's about to go into surgery. No one can see her."

  "I…I'm her husband," I lied.

  She eyed me up and down. "Got ID?"

  "I left it in the cab. He's probably gone."

  She craned her head and tried to look past me. I mirrored her movements and blocked her view. I worried that the blue lights flashing close to the door would draw her eye. They didn't. I then realized that working in an ER would have made her immune to such things. It was nothing more than business as usual, judging by her casual tone and reaction.

  "I'm gonna have to make a call on this," she said.

  I sighed my disapproval as she stepped away and picked up a phone. Her chubby finger hit a single button. I heard the word security muttered. I placed both palms on the counter and pushed myself up so that I leaned over the top. Saw a clipboard and grabbed it. My feet hit the ground again and I turned and started walking, pushing past a door with red signs and white letters that I didn't bother to let form into words in my head. My eyes scanned the patient list until I saw Tammy's name and room number.

  The nurse might have called after me. Then again, maybe not. I didn't pay attention. I lifted my eyes until they peered over the plastic clipboard. It took a second or two for my eyes to adjust from near to far, and the blur faded. The wide hallway was full of the sounds of machines pumping and beeping, drowning out the moans and groans and cries of people in pain. I wondered who they were. Had they been in car accidents like Tammy? Had some been shot or stabbed or fallen down stairs? Or perhaps pushed? Maybe a homeless guy or two who didn't reach the shelter in time and found themselves needing a warm place to rest their head, needles and tubes and machines be damned.

  The hall doglegged to the right. My eyes scanned open doorways, counting ahead. Tammy's room was halfway down the hall, by my estimation. Two men appeared from around a corner and approached from the other end of the corridor. They moved with purpose. They were carbon copies of one another. Carbon copies of the type of men I'd seen working private security in every corner of the world. Both men had close cut hair and wore dark pants and dark shirts, slightly baggy in order to conceal their holstered weapons. They were closer to Tammy's room than I was. I started to move faster than them. They broke out into a jog. I started to run. They reached the door first.

  I reached behind and pulled my weapon. "Get the hell away from that door, or I'll blow your goddamn heads off."

  Both men stopped and lifted their hands above their heads and took a few steps back.

  Heads poked out from dark empty doorways, looking one way, then the other. They saw the men with their hands in the air and inevitably settled their stares on me, the crazy person in the hospital with a gun.

  "Get back in your rooms," I said.

  Most of them did. A few didn't. It didn't matter and I didn't bother to look behind me or past the men outside Tammy's room.

  "Turn around," I said.

  The men didn't. They did continue to back up, though. I figured they were trying to reach the hall that they entered through, and there they'd turn and make a run for it.

  "Get the hell out of here," I said.

  They made it a quarter of the way down the hall, looked at each other, and turned and ran, bypassing their exit. They slammed into the emergency exit and fell over themselves to get out of my aim. Turns out, they did me a favor. With the alarm blaring, security bolted past Tammy's room, ignoring the guy who a minute ago wielded a gun and threatened half the floor. To them, I was a visitor. They had bigger concerns at that time.

  I stepped into Tammy's room. She lay on the bed, unconscious. Circles of blue and purple ringed her eyes. Two rows of stitches crossed her head. Bandages littered her body, covering smaller cuts and scrapes. I figured there were more bruises and cuts under her gown.

  My cell phone vibrated against my leg. I pulled it out, flipped it open and answered it.

  "I said no cops," the familiar robotic voice said. "Did you not believe me when I said the boy will pay for your idiocy and failure to comply?"

  "What did you want me to do? I didn't bring them, they followed me. You gave me fifteen minutes to drive twenty. I had to speed. They clocked me going a hundred in a thirty-five."

  The man started laughing. Short, chunky, clunky. The sounds of his cackles stopped, and he said, "Congratulations, Mr. Noble. You passed the
test. I'll be in touch soon with further instructions. Playtime is over."

  "What? Wait-"

  "And please, say hello to Ms. Nockowitz for me."

  The line went silent. The call had ended. I held the phone loosely in my left hand, half hoping it would ring again. It didn't.

  Tammy started to stir. Her eyes fluttered open. She looked at me, fear spread across her face until she placed me, and then it turned into one of the most pained expressions I'd ever seen in my life. The same expression my mother made when the doctors told her my sister didn't make it.

  "They took him," she said.

  I sat on the edge of the bed. The tears streamed down her cheeks and rolled off her narrow chin. I placed my hand on her shoulder. She winced in pain at my touch.

  "They took him again," she said.

  I nodded. "I know. I'm going to do everything I can to get him back for you. I did it once, I can do it again."

  "He might be dead already." Tears continued to snake down her cheeks in predetermined paths.

  Already?

  "I heard him on the phone, Tammy. He's alive. He sounded scared, but he's alive."

  She said something else, but the words were lost in between her sobs, and as quickly as she had woken up, she passed out again.

  I sat next to her, gun in one hand, the other gently caressing her arm. The alarm blared in the background and two more men streamed past the door. I got up and stuck my head through the opening. The four guys dressed in security uniforms stood at the emergency exit and worked to pull the doors shut. I didn't understand why something so seemingly simple appeared to be so difficult. Eventually, they were successful with their task. The doors closed, and the alarm stopped, and they turned their attention to Tammy's room.

  I sat down in a short backed vinyl chair, waited, thought about how I would handle the situation. I could play it cool, like a super-agent in a movie. Sit in the chair, right leg crossed over my left, gun aimed at the doorway, smile on my face. I'd make a joke about how they could bring me a mint julep or some other fancy drink I wouldn't be caught dead drinking.

  I decided that the best thing was to wait for them and let them know I wasn't a threat. I got up from the chair and sat back down on the bed. I had to intimidate them, so I aimed my pistol at the open doorway. Two men entered the room, anger spread across their faces. They looked me up and down. Both stopped at the sight of my gun.

  "I'm not going to shoot," I said.

  One man nodded. The other was motionless.

  "I'm one of the good guys," I said.

  One man nodded, again. The other remained motionless.

  "I'm a federal agent and I helped save this woman's son and I'm going to do so again."

  Before the one man could nod again while the other did nothing, Frank stepped into the room behind them. Two uniformed police officers followed him inside.

  "I hope they're not here for me," I said.

  Frank smiled. "How is she?"

  I looked past him. The cops explained the situation to the security officers, or at least some variation of it that Frank had fed them. All four men left the room, leaving me, Frank and an unconscious Tammy alone.

  "Where's Sarah?" I said

  "In the waiting room," Frank said.

  "Figured she'd want to see the injuries."

  "I wanted to talk to you first and make sure things were OK."

  "Things are OK."

  "Did he call again?"

  "Yeah."

  "What did he say?" Frank said.

  "He laughed and said I passed the test. He also said he'd call back with further instructions."

  Frank exhaled loudly and placed his hands on his hips. "I don't like this, Jack." He pointed at Tammy. "She say anything about the accident?"

  "Only that they took her son, again."

  "Anything else?"

  "That he might be dead already."

  "Already?"

  "Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Why already? Did they say something to her or did something happen earlier that led her to believe this was going to happen? That the end result would be the death of her son?"

  "Did you ask?"

  "She passed out."

  Frank nodded. His lips worked side to side and I could tell he was thinking something through. "You think she wasn't really coming onto you at the party? Maybe she was scared and hoped to get you alone so she could talk to you?"

  I shrugged. "It's possible, I suppose. But why wouldn't she come out and say she needed help?"

  "I don't know. Maybe with everything she's been through, she has a hard time trusting. Of everyone in that room, I would think you would be the one she felt she could trust. You did save her son from perishing in the fire, after all. She received the full story. She knows you could have left, but you stayed and risked your life for her kid."

  "And here I figured that was the reason she came on to me."

  Frank walked toward me and came to a stop at the foot of the bed. "Tammy," he called in a soft voice. The woman didn't stir. "Dammit, I wish she'd wake up so I can ask her a few questions."

  "Me too," I said. "I can't help but feel we're missing something."

  "We're missing a lot of things, Jack."

  Someone cleared their throat outside the room. I looked up and saw Sarah standing there, half in the room, half in the hall. "Sorry, got tired of waiting out there." She stepped into the room, walked over, stopped between Frank and me. "How is she?"

  "Beat up, burned up, and passed out," I said.

  She nodded and took a step forward and leaned over me to inspect Tammy up close. Her body brushed up against mine and strands of her hair became caught in the stubble on my face. Her hair smelled of smoke and alcohol, but still retained a scent of lavender or some kind of exotic oil.

  "What are you looking for?" Frank asked.

  "I'll know if I find it," Sarah replied.

  "What the hell does that mean?" Frank said.

  After working with Frank for more than two years, I knew that of all the things someone could do to get under his skin, being indirect was the main infraction. It drove him crazy to not have all the facts and know what was going on at all times.

  "It means I'm looking," Sarah said. "I don't know what for. If I find it, I'll know." She shook her head and continued examining Tammy. "And maybe I'll tell you," she added.

  Frank waved his hand at her and shook his head. I could sense his frustration filling the room.

  "Frank, let's talk in the hall," I said.

  Outside the room, he said, "What?"

  "I've been thinking we need to get a couple guys down here to watch over Tammy. I don't trust this creep. His guys could be anywhere, and the moment we leave, he could pounce and kill her, leaving him to slip away with the boy."

  "OK," Frank said.

  "We need to get some security around those other kids and their families, too."

  Frank nodded, said nothing.

  "If he came after one, he might go after the others as well. I think this guy has an ego problem."

  "Yeah, we squashed it and now he's trying to prove he's bigger and badder than us."

  I nodded. "My thoughts exactly."

  "We don't have the resources locally to pull this off. I guess I could recall a few of the teams from here to the mid-west…"

  "Nah, don't do that. We'll have to bite the bullet and ask for help."

  "OK. You're right."

  "Don't tell them too much, though."

  Frank nodded and then looked up the hall, and then back down. His eyes settled on a room labeled Conference and he took off in that direction.

  I backed into the room. Quiet and undetected. Sarah bent over Tammy's motionless body. Her hands worked expertly around the woman's neck, torso, and abdomen. She glanced over her shoulder, then flinched and stood.

  "Didn't hear you come back in," she said.

  "One of my specialties," I said.

  "Must have paid dividends in your younger years." She wi
nked.

  I smiled and said nothing.

  "I didn't find anything unusual."

  "Didn't think you would."

  "Why's that?"

  "A hunch."

  "Something tells me it's more than a hunch."

  I shrugged.

  "Don't trust me?" She asked.

  I didn't reply.

  "Whatever," she said. "Don't tell me."

  "I won't."

  The click-clack of hard-soled shoes echoed down the hall. They moved quickly and with a purpose. A doctor, I figured, rushing to save a patient that had coded. Only thing was, I hadn't heard an announcement or a series of tones through the speakers. I reached for my pistol and aimed it at the open door.

  The footsteps came to a halt and Frank stuck his head in the room. "Jack, we gotta go."

  "Why? Did you get everything arranged?"

  "Yeah," he said. "And then I called into headquarters and got some bad news."

  "What?"

  "Remember Pablo?"

  "Yeah."

  "He's had a heart attack."

  Chapter 15

  I sat in Frank's office with the chair pushed back to the glass window that separated him from the lobby. I leaned my head back against the cool glass and stared at the clock on the wall. Behind his desk, Frank pounded away at his keyboard, searching for who knows what. I didn't ask. He didn't tell. We barely talked, and during those moments when we did, it was about nothing in particular.

  Sarah assisted Doc with Pablo in the infirmary. While not a cardiologist, Doc was capable of treating the man. That's why he'd been chosen for the SIS. The guy had experience in the field, running with Special Forces in some of the deadliest areas in the world. And the infirmary was state of the art. The care Pablo received was as good as any hospital in the area. I hoped it would be good enough to keep him alive. We couldn't afford to lose him, yet.

  We had three of the guys from the house detained below, and they could offer information. However, Pablo offered us something none of them could. He was from outside their organization, a part of it, but not really. He could get in the house without a problem, and they all knew him. He knew everything, and kept his distance, which would serve to cloud his judgment and memory a bit less. He had other interests that they wanted no part of, or perhaps were allowed no part of. Either way, Pablo was the key to us bringing down whoever ran the ring. And that, I was sure, was the key to getting us close to the man who'd kidnapped the little boy.