Ashes, Ashes

by Charles Atkins

  ‘Check the door,’ Carla said. ‘I didn’t hear him lock it when he brought you back last night.’

  At first Barrett couldn’t hear her, was too distracted and too frightened.

  ‘Try the door,’ Carla said again.

  ‘Right.’ She positioned her cuffed wrists around the steel handle. She pressed down, and with a start she felt it give. She glanced down the hall to make sure Glash hadn’t returned, and then gently pushed. ‘It’s open.’

  ‘Go for help. Please go quickly!’ Carla pleaded. ‘He’s got to be stopped.’

  Barrett glanced down at her fellow prisoner.

  ‘No,’ Carla said, ‘don’t waste any time on me. Get out of here. He could come back at any time. Please hurry!’

  Feeling horribly exposed, Barrett stepped out into the corridor and glanced at the television sets that had been running non-stop. Glash had alerted the press to his every move. He was taunting the authorities, and now he’d started a panic with the threat of an anthrax attack. News shows were interviewing physicians at hospitals already overwhelmed with terrified citizens. People were barricading themselves in their houses and apartments. If they knew what he really intended, she thought, it would be even worse.

  With her hands still restrained and in front of her, she ran awkwardly toward the steel door. She turned the knob. ‘Shit!’ He’d forgotten their cell door, but not this one. ‘It’s locked,’ she shouted back to Carla.

  She doubled back to the nurses’ station and hunted for the release switch. After crawling under the counter and frantically feeling in the dark she found the button and pressed. She heard a buzz and the door clicked. She got up and raced for it. Halfway there it clicked again. ‘No!’ she screamed, as tears of frustration welled. It was on a short timer. Just a couple of seconds; no way could she press the button and make it down the hall.

  ‘You’re going to have to help me.’ She ran back to Carla. ‘I need you to hold the button while I get the door.’

  Carla nodded. ‘Can you undo my legs?’

  Barrett, her hands bound, struggled to pull back the duct tape he’d wrapped in thick bands around Carla’s legs. Every millisecond she wondered if he’d returned. What would he do to them if he found them like this?

  ‘It’s taking too long,’ Carla said, as Barrett’s fingers struggled to get a firm hold. ‘Can you just drag me?’

  ‘I’ll try.’ And she grabbed Carla by her bare feet and clumsily started to pull. Carla’s dead weight against the padded rubber floor made every inch a small victory. Sweat ran down Barrett’s back and slicked up her hands. Carla tried to help, but every time she’d twist the wrong way, she’d slip from Barrett’s grasp and her legs would thump heavily to the floor.

  ‘I am so scared,’ Carla said. ‘If he comes back and finds us …’

  ‘I know,’ Barrett said, struggling to drag Carla off the rubber surface of their room and on to the scuffed linoleum squares in the hall. Less resistance now, but an entire news show, then a second, third, fourth … they lost count as broadcasters came and went. Finally, she got Carla positioned next to the door-release button.

  Exhausted, Barrett ran to the unit door. ‘Do it now!’ she shouted.

  It buzzed and the latch clicked. She pressed down on the handle and pushed the door with her hip. ‘It’s open.’

  ‘Barrett, wait!’ Carla shouted.

  ‘What?’ Barrett asked, itching to get out.

  ‘Please, call my ex and have him get April out of the city. He’s got her in summer camp, and if I knew she was out …’

  ‘You got it.’ And Barrett bolted down the hall to the main lobby. But what would happen now if she encountered other locked doors? She tried to figure how long Glash had been gone. Had to be three hours, possibly more.

  Her pulse pounded in her ears as she ran down the stairs and into the central foyer. The front door was chained and locked, so she turned toward the rear service entrance where Glash had brought them in. Her breath caught at the sound of a car pulling up. He was back. Panicked, she looked around and darted into a deserted office and hid behind the door. She thought about trying to ambush him. But though an accomplished martial artist, with her hands still in the plastic restraints she wouldn’t stand a chance. The engine cut off and then she heard his footsteps in the new work boots he’d purchased for his date. She held her breath as he passed by the open door and headed up the stairs. She’d have almost no time before he discovered she’d escaped. She counted to ten, prayed that she was out of his visual field, and then scurried toward the service entrance.

  Eighteen

  It had taken over an hour, with the unmarked Crown Vic barreling down I-684 at over a hundred miles an hour, to get from the Lower East Side of Manhattan to the imposing iron gates of Albomar State Mental Hospital, north of Poughkeepsie. With the blue light on the dash flashing and the siren screaming, it had been a tense ride. Hobbs was still fuming over the interaction with Peter Glash – he knew something, probably quite a bit – when they caught a radio report of the murder and theft at Bioforward. That was quickly followed by a breathless phone call from the cryptologist, Geri Atwell.

  ‘I can’t believe this went unnoticed for five years!’ Geri had fumed, referring to the rambling dissertation that Albert had insisted run in The Times as a condition of his surrender. ‘It’s the fucking end of the world!’

  ‘Great,’ Hobbs had replied, edging the speedometer to 120, and turning off the siren so he could hear. ‘So what do we think Richard Glash just got his hands on?’

  ‘It’s plague,’ Atwell started, ‘but not just any plague. Albert had been working on this for years, systematically strengthening the strain to make it resistant to all known antibiotics.’

  Hobbs listened in horror, feeling the blood drain from his face.

  ‘It gets worse. Albert believed that he had strengthened the cell wall to where it would no longer require animal vectors.’

  ‘Rats and fleas,’ Houssman whispered.

  ‘What?’ Hobbs asked.

  ‘That’s how bubonic was spread. Still shows up occasionally, a few people die every year in the Midwest – prairie dogs can carry it – mostly the elderly or someone with a compromised immune system, but everyone else gets better with antibiotics.’

  Atwell had then given them the rest of what he’d decoded. ‘There’s still another half to get through,’ he said. ‘The encryption is infuriating, but not impossible; the actual wording is twisted and pseudo biblical. The last bit seems significant.’

  ‘Let’s hear it,’ Hobbs said, his eyes fixed on the road, occasionally laying on the horn to clear the passing lane.

  ‘If I’ve got it right, he left his bacteria at Bioforward as a kind of time bomb.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Hobbs said, swearing at some moron who wasn’t getting out of his way fast enough.

  ‘It’s sketchy; I’ll read you what I’ve got: “If mankind does not alter its course then the plague that visited Egypt will be brought forth by a great destroyer and savior – the new messiah. For years this plague will remain dormant, but the wickedness of man shall open the gates of hell and plague will flow. Only the just, and the persecuted, locked away by the wicked, shall remain. They, and not the meek, will inherit the earth.”’

  ‘What a bunch of crap!’ Hobbs exclaimed.

  ‘Hey, I didn’t say it was Shakespeare,’ Atwell came back. ‘So who else needs to know this?’

  ‘The Feds,’ Hobbs said, ‘and of course Homeland Security.’ He’d then given Atwell Cosway’s number, as he cut across three lanes and shot toward the exit ramp.

  Now, at the entrance to the sprawling and deserted grounds of the State Hospital, which included the Albomar youth facility, Hobbs faced a dilemma. His gut told him to barrel ahead, but between roughing up Peter Glash and partaking in the destruction of the crime scene at Albert’s, a warning – honed through years on the force – told him that his emotions were way too involved. ‘Don’t be a cowboy,’ he wh
ispered under his breath.

  ‘Good advice,’ Houssman said as they drove through the gates.

  ‘This place is massive.’

  ‘You going to call him?’ Houssman asked, understanding part of Hobbs’s dilemma.

  ‘I supposed I’d better.’

  ‘Yes,’ Houssman agreed, ‘don’t be a cowboy.’

  Hobbs punched in Cosway’s cell number. ‘Where are you?’ the Homeland agent demanded. ‘I just got off the phone with Atwell. What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Hobbs held his breath. ‘Which would you like answered first?’

  ‘Don’t pull this shit, Hobbs. Where the fuck are you?’

  ‘Albomar. There’s a good chance this is what Glash calls home.’

  ‘Based on what?’

  With the Ford slowly moving over the grounds, Hobbs gave Cosway an abbreviated version of their meeting with Peter Glash.

  ‘Sounds like another of your fucking goose chases,’ Cosway said.

  Hobbs felt panic, seeing just how massive Albomar was. Thousands of rolling acres, the one-time state residential hospital had been its own city nestled in the foothills of the Catskills, housing 7,000 patients, and even the doctors and nurses had had tidy brick homes that now had holes in their roofs and were slowly crumbling.

  Houssman stiffened in his seat, he grabbed the binoculars from under the dash.

  Hobbs slowed the car.

  ‘That’s him,’ Houssman pointed. ‘See, he’s going into the old youth facility. That’s where he used to live.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Cosway asked.

  Hobbs tensed. ‘We just found our goose.’

  ‘Do not approach him,’ Cosway ordered. ‘Stay where you are and keep him under surveillance. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Do not approach; that’s a direct order, Hobbs. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Hobbs said, the scarred half of his face starting to tingle. He knew she was close. Cosway viewed Barrett and Carla Phelps as expendable pawns. Hell, he’d done his duty and called the guy.

  Houssman, still peering through the binoculars, said, ‘He’s gone inside. I know that building fairly well. He’ll be up on the second-floor ward where they housed violent youths.’

  Hobbs eased the Ford behind a thick privet hedge. The youth facility was less than a hundred yards away. He quietly opened the car door.

  Houssman looked across at him. ‘You have fourteen minutes before Cosway gets here. Go get her.’

  Nineteen

  Glash can’t pull his thoughts off Mary as he drives into the loading dock. She said yes. He’d told her that there was a ninety percent probability that he would die. She’d said, ‘Yes. I will marry you. If you survive, I will marry you.’ He’d told her how much he liked her wig – blonde and soft; she’d said it was human hair – and that he no longer needed to kill her. He’d told her that he loved her. He’d never understood what the word meant, but something inside of him knew that his decades-long attraction to Mary, and the fact that he’d not killed her, had to be love. He had asked her to marry him. She had cried. He had asked her a second time. Still sobbing, she had said yes. She was a year younger than he, and as he drove back he calculated the likelihood of her being able to conceive. ‘I’m forty-two years old,’ he said aloud as he drove. ‘I should have a wife. I should have children.’ The probability of both those things happening was tiny. But she had said yes.

  He gets out of the van and picks up Albert’s metal box. This is his plan A; Mary and a family is plan B. He told her how soon he was going to be very famous. He predicted she would be impressed. Women like famous men.

  He walks up the stairs, and knows that the bacteria are ready; it’s time to clear one final hurdle. Was Albert telling the truth? Are the bacteria as virulent as he claimed? He will test them on Carla Phelps; this is his reason for a second hostage. Dr Conyors will record for posterity and write a book and Carla Phelps is a guinea pig.

  He stops at the outer door to the ward. He’d left it locked; it is now unlatched. High probability that one or both of his hostages have fled. His mind races through the possibilities. How much time had elapsed? Is he walking into a trap?

  Standing still, he hears a woman’s footsteps and the unmistakable sound of the outside door creaking open.

  He’d left Dr Conyors with her feet unbound – a mistake. But Carla can’t run. He predicts that she’s still inside. He pulls out his gun and pushes the door open. He runs into the ward and spots Phelps trying to hide under the nurses’ station.

  ‘Stay away from me,’ she screams, and curls her limbs into a tight ball.

  He pockets the gun and grabs her by her taped ankles.

  ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she sobs.

  He hoists her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. He imagines that Dr Conyors is now running to find help. The grounds of Albomar are vast. She must go a quarter-mile in any direction to get off the property. If he gets to her first, he’ll shoot her. A shame, because she is a good writer.

  He glances at the television sets and sees blurred footage of Martin Cosway surrounded by reporters telling them that the break-in at Bioforward was unrelated to the string of murders. ‘Regardless,’ Cosway adds, ‘the prudent next step is to raise the security level from yellow to orange.’ Glash wants to watch. Another set has his mugshot, and a third runs grainy footage of Justin Green. He is getting to be very famous.

  With Carla over his shoulder, he retrieves the laptop from the nurses’ station, tucks it under his arm, and with Albert’s box filled with plague dangling from his hand, he retraces his steps. It’s time to leave this place. He needs a new hostage, and if he’s lucky, he’ll kill Dr Conyors, even though she had helped him dress for Mary – she said he looked very nice – but she just ran away from him; he’s warned her repeatedly not to do that. He will kill her.

  Even burdened, he moves quickly back down the stairs and to the van. Dr Conyors has a one minute and ten seconds lead on him. But she is on foot. He tosses Carla into the back, and checks to be certain that Dr Conyors isn’t hiding under the vehicle to ambush him. He scans in all directions, hoping to spot her. She has either concealed herself or is too far away.

  He turns over the engine and backs out. A motion in the rear-view mirror grabs his attention. It’s Dr Conyors, running barefoot toward an approaching tan sedan. She is slow and awkward, her bound hands impeding her stride.

  He throws the van into drive. But to get to the hospital’s main gate he’ll be forced to pass this oncoming car.

  There is great risk and unknown variables: who is driving the vehicle? Are they armed? He wants to kill Dr Conyors, but whoever is in that car will likely try to kill him.

  He picks up speed and notes how the tan car is now heading toward Dr Conyors and not him. She looks back at him. He sees the fear in her face and the blood on her feet.

  Yes, he’d taken off her shoes the first time she’d had to use the bathroom. Easier that way to get her pants on and off. But now he observes it slows her escape. He reaches into his pocket for the gun. He will kill her now.

  He sees two men in the tan vehicle. Less than fifty yards away.

  A queer emotion, like a stab of light to his brain, makes him stare. He sees the old man with the hat and in a split second his plan changes. He turns the wheel hard to the right, and aims the vehicle for Dr Conyors. He will run her down. He will take a new hostage.

  She looks back and sprints toward an ancient oak.

  The tan Ford swerves in front of her, placing itself between her and Glash’s van. The rear tires skid out and its front end collides with the tree.

  He hears Dr Conyors scream and sees the airbags cushion the heads of the two men inside. He labels them ‘A’ and ‘B’.

  He scans the horizon for other vehicles, and gripping the gun, opens the van door.

  Twenty

  Hobbs felt the tires slide out on the gravel, as he slammed on the brakes. He saw Barrett dive behind the tree and felt pa
nic – had he just miscalculated? Glash was about to run her over. Was he about to do it instead? He was going too fast.

  He braced for the impact and threw his right hand back to protect Houssman. They hit the tree hard, and as the airbags deployed his thoughts skittered back to another car. That one had exploded with him inside. He pictured Barrett and then his ex-wife and his two daughters. His vision dimmed; it grew hazy like an old-fashioned television getting turned off. He struggled to not lose consciousness. He heard a banging noise.

  ‘Hobbs!’

  ‘Barrett!’ His eyes shot open. She was pulling on the door trying to get it open.

  ‘He’s coming!’ she screamed. ‘Get out of the car!’

  He turned to see Houssman, also stunned – his hat gone, his glasses hanging off his ear. ‘Shit!’ Adrenalin pushed through the haze as he caught sight of Glash bearing down on them with a gun pointed at Houssman’s head.

  ‘Shit!’ He yanked the door handle, pushed it open and rolled to the ground. ‘Get down,’ he told Barrett, as he freed his Glock from its holster.

  ‘I’ve got a gun to Dr George Houssman’s head,’ Glash yelled. ‘Try anything and he’s dead.’

  They heard the passenger door being yanked open, and Glash breathing hard. From under the Ford they could see his boot-clad feet. Hobbs aimed the Glock, but before he could get a shot, Glash grabbed Houssman and dragged him from the car.

  Barrett gasped as she saw her dear mentor, barely awake, an open gash on the side of his head, being used as a human shield by Glash. He gripped Houssman’s bird-thin body in a one-armed embrace as he backed his way to the van.

  ‘Try anything and I’ll kill him. I’ll kill them both.’

  Hobbs, still on his belly, snaked toward the rear of the Ford.

  ‘He doesn’t care if he dies,’ Barrett said. ‘He’s got to be stopped.’

  ‘I know.’

  They watched helplessly as Glash, with his gun pressed to George’s temple, shoved him through the driver’s side door.