“If it doesn’t burn us to death,” Malin said.
“No, we don’t need a big fire,” she said. She snapped open the back of the thermometer and found an AAA-battery inside. Plucking it out, she set it beside the soaked pile. “Just enough to smoke up the place. I think this’ll do it.”
“You’re sure this’ll unlock the doors?” he asked.
Elna shrugged. “Let’s say…eighty percent sure.” She picked up a paper clip and unfolded it. “This is a trick I read about once. I’ve never actually tried it.” Using a scalpel, she pried off a portion of the outer cap on the negative terminal of the battery. “The end of the paperclip needs to contact the actual cell. It should start to smolder pretty fast.” She glanced at Malin. “I would stand near the door, if I were you. The second you hear those locks disengage, get out.”
“And if the locks don’t disengage?” he asked.
“Then start pounding the hell out of the door,” she said, “while I try to contain the fire.”
She worked the end of the paperclip deep into the battery, pressing the cracked outer cap down to hold it in place. Then she bent the other end of the paperclip to touch the outside of the terminal. She felt heat almost immediately, and she quickly set the little contraption next to the pile of alcohol-soaked bandages and socks.
In a matter of seconds, a small flame appeared, lighting the alcohol and quickly spreading throughout the pile. Oily smoke rose in a thin tendril. Elna was afraid it wasn’t enough, so she added a few cotton balls to the pile. This produced a lot of dark smoke.
“Cross every finger,” she told Malin.
“They’re crossed. They’re crossed.”
He was in the middle of speaking when the sprinkler overhead burst to life with a loud pop. As alarms began to scream throughout the building and the room lights came up to full brightness, black filthy water gushed out of the sprinkler, splashing off the walls, the floor, off Elna and Malin. Only when the water began soaking into her clothes did Elna realize she’d left her rain coat wadded up on the floor. She ran to get it and was in the process of unrolling it when she heard the door lock disengage with a click.
“That’s it,” Malin cried, clapping excitedly. “You did it, Elna! My God, you did it!”
As he pulled open the door, Elna used the raincoat to swipe the smoking pile off the counter. The sprinklers had already taken care of the fire, but she stomped the pile into oblivion just to be safe. Then she tossed the raincoat over her shoulder and followed Malin out of the room.
Nurses came racing out of the room down the hall. Elna hurried toward them.
“The bad guy,” she shouted. “Where did he go? Tell me quick.”
One of the nurses pointed down the hall. “Around the corner. Up the elevator to the top floor. ICU. He’s armed! Don’t go up there.”
“Okay,” Elna said. “Find somewhere to hide. Hurry!”
She heard people moving out of their water-soaked rooms all up and down the hall, people shouting and cursing and crying. The nurses began to round up patients as Elna headed down the hall.
“Wait, are we going up to ICU?” Malin said, rushing to catch up with her. “That’s where Mark went.”
“We have to get Raymond,” Elna said, “and we have to get our medication. That means heading up to ICU, yes. If Mark is up there, so be it. Maybe I can plead with him for what we need.”
“At least let me go get the compound bow first,” Malin said. “Just in case.”
The sprinklers cut out then, the roar of water fading, and suddenly the hospital was filled with dozens of wailing and shrieking voices from all up and down the hall. Elna was drenched and felt truly miserable. All of the road dust on her clothes and body had turned to mud, which left a trail behind her.
Suddenly, she heard a new sound, and she stopped in her tracks. It came from around the corner. First, she heard a heavy door swinging open. Then she heard the bark and squeal of a two-way radio being activated. A voice spoke through static, and another voice responded.
“We shut off the water valve,” the second voice said. She recognized him. “I don’t see no fire or smoke.”
Tomek! That little creep!
The deep voice that responded from the radio was also familiar to her even through the screen of static.
“Hurry and check the whole floor,” Mark said. “We don’t need any surprises.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Be the predator, not the prey.” The crackle of the radio and Tomek’s voice faded as he continued down the hall.
Elna thrust her arm out to stop Malin as she turned. All of the shouting voices in the hall were quieting as people seemed to be moving together to some distant location. When Elna looked back down the hall, she saw a last group of nurses moving patients through a distant door.
Pressing a hand to Malin’s back, she got him moving in that direction. Passing through the door, she found that they were in some kind of employee break room, with couches, tables, vending machines, and a row of coffee makers on a counter. Nurses, staff, and patients were crawling under the many tables to hide, and the lights were off.
“Please, shut the door,” someone hissed from the darkness. “Hide!”
Elna made sure the door swung shut behind her, catching it so it wouldn’t make a sound.
“I need my bow,” Malin said. “We might have to fight.”
“No, we’re not fighting,” Elna said. “Mark and Tomek have been working together all along. Did you hear what Tomek said about predator and prey? Those are Mark’s words! This whole thing was a setup, and you’ve only got two arrows. Hunker down and let them leave. Once they’re gone, we’ll find Raymond and hope they left the medication we need. That’s all we can do.”
And with that, she found a shadowy spot in a corner and crouched down. Malin hesitated a second, scowling into the darkness, then held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and followed her into the corner.
27
Malin couldn’t shake a feeling of responsibility. He’d ignored his instincts about Mark, and the end result was a big mess, and people were possibly dead.
Never again, he told himself. Next time, I will trust the bad vibes immediately and deal with the situation.
The whole hospital had grown quiet. Malin heard breathing in the room, the anxious shifting and shuffling of bodies crammed together under the tables and in the corners, but no sounds came from the hallway beyond the door. He strained to hear footsteps. Tomek and his team would have to walk past the door to reach the lobby, but minutes passed, and Malin heard no one.
“I don’t think they’re leaving the building,” he said. “They were probably just making sure there wasn’t a fire burning on the first floor. If we want to get Raymond and the medicine, we’ll have to go after them, Elna. I know that’s not what you want to hear.”
He realized a couple of nurses were crawling toward them. Both were familiar: John and Aubrey, the nurses who had tended to Raymond when they’d first arrived.
“Are you guys trying to get up to the ICU to rescue your friend?” John asked.
“Yeah,” Elna said. “Was he okay the last time you saw him?”
“He was fine,” John said. “The looters let us stabilize him. We thought the guy in the black coat was your friend when you came here, but I’m guessing you were his hostages.”
“Without realizing it, yes,” Malin said.
“Is there a back entrance into the ICU?” Elna asked.
John and Aubrey looked at each other. A silent debate seemed to pass between them, and both nodded.
“Yeah,” Aubrey said, finally. “I can lead you there. Follow me.”
Malin and Elna followed her to a cabinet above the coffee makers. She opened one, rooted around inside, and produced a small keycard with a clip.
“I’m not supposed to keep this here,” she said, “but it’s easier than going to the lockbox every time I need to lock or unlock a door. I can get you to the ICU. How do you plan to handle the bad gu
ys? I don’t know what they’re up to now. Stealing everything they can get their hands on, I suppose.”
“We need to get our friend,” Elna said, “and then we need to get some specific medications. We’ll pay for them, trust me. If we can handle this gang of looters, we’ll do that, too, I guess.”
“Oh, we’re going to handle them,” Malin said, feeling a surge of anger. He clenched his fists. “Believe me. Just get us up there.”
John opened a drawer beneath one of the coffee makers, revealing a silverware tray. He dug a few small knives out of the tray and set them on the counter. They were steak knives, serrated on one side, with black plastic handles. Not much to fight with but Malin picked one up anyway.
“What if we used strong sedatives to knock them out?” Elna asked. “That would be safer than a closer-quarters knife fight, especially since Mark has the security guard’s gun.”
“We’ve got plenty of sedatives,” Aubrey said. “Are you planning on getting close enough to inject them with syringes?”
“Maybe we could drug some food,” Elna said. “Meals on the way here weren’t great. If we could entice them with something tasty, load it up with sedatives, and get them to ingest it…Or we put it in some water bottles. We ran low on water on our way here.”
“Our pal Mark does love to wander off looking for water,” Malin said. “He’d abandon his own mother for some fresh water.”
“Okay, that’s enough about that,” Elna said. “Can you two lead us to the service elevator or stairs?”
The nurses, John and Aubrey, looked at each other, as if each expected the other to respond.
“We’ve still got patients in triage,” John said. “I don’t want to leave them there.”
“Fine,” Aubrey said. “I’ll go with these two. We’ve got sedatives in a medication cart at a nurse’s station down the hall. Assuming these looters haven’t taken it all, we should find what we need there.”
She beckoned them and moved to the back of the room. A door that Malin had assumed was a closet actually led to a wide back hallway. She unlocked it with the keycard and waved them through. The back hall was brightly lit and cooler than the rest of the building. As best Malin could tell, it ran the entire length of the building.
Nurse Aubrey rushed ahead of them. Her tight bun had started to come undone, long strands of gray hair flapping out behind her. Malin wasn’t entirely sold on their plan. Trying to get them to somehow drink drugged water? Wouldn’t a more direct attack work better? Couldn’t they just lock them in a wing of the hospital and gas the place or something? Still, it seemed like their course was set, and he wasn’t going to second-guess Elna’s judgment.
At the far end of the hall, Nurse Aubrey stopped before a second door, pressed her ear against it for a second, then eased it open. As Malin approached, she touched a finger to her lips. The door appeared to open at the back of a nurse’s station. Malin saw a long counter, desks, office chairs, cabinets with glass fronts, and papers everywhere. Moving low, he slipped through the door, Elna following right behind him.
The faint buzzing of an overhead light was the only noticeable sound, but Malin held his breath, listening for any sound of Tomek and the gang. He heard no one.
“They’re in this building somewhere,” he said. “What are we going to do if we accidentally run right into them?”
Elna shushed him as she moved across the room. Nurse Aubrey hung back, softening the sound of the door as it closed. Then she turned and approached Malin.
“I don’t see the medication cart in here,” she said, speaking just above a whisper. “Must be in one of the patient rooms. We’ll have to search for it.”
“We don’t want to run into the hostiles,” Elna said over her shoulder, clutching the kitchen knife in her right hand. A broad opening led into the hallway, and she pressed herself up against the wall beside it.
Malin moved up beside her. He felt the cold, hard handle of the knife against his palm. Despite Elna’s words, he thought it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if he got a chance to plunge the blade into Mark Baker’s Neanderthal throat. Elna must’ve read this on his face, because she leaned in, patted him on the chest, and gave him a meaningful look.
“Don’t get any rash ideas,” she said.
“I am restraining myself as best I can,” he replied.
That seemed to satisfy her. She nodded, turned, and slipped out into the hall.
28
They found the medication cart in an empty patient room near the elevator doors. As Malin stood guard outside, clutching the tiny kitchen knife in front of him and trying to imagine a scenario where it would actually help him overcome a group of armed men, Elna and the nurse went into the room. Beyond the elevators, he saw a door to the stairwell, the narrow window above the latch revealing the dimly lit steps beyond. A sign beside the door confirmed that ICU was on the third floor.
How the hell is this going to work? he wondered. There has to be a better way of dealing with Mark and his crew.
He braced himself for a charge, just in case, planting the heel of his right foot against the wall. If someone came through the elevator door or from the stairs, he would have to catch them off guard. It didn’t help that he was still soaked, that he had no socks, and that his shoes felt like muddy sponges.
When Nurse Aubrey stepped out of the patient’s room, little glass bottles clanking in her hands, it startled him. He spun around, bringing the knife up, only to see her standing there, eyebrows climbing her forehead.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m jumpy, I guess.”
“Understandable,” the nurse replied. She had a bunch of tiny glass bottles and syringes clutched in her hands. She moved to a desk in a small alcove nearby and set them down.
“It’s the strongest stuff I could find,” Elna said, stepping out of the room and pulling the door shut behind her.
Malin picked up one of the tiny bottles and tried to read the label.
“Chlordi…Chlordiazepoxide,” he said.
Nurse Aubrey began filling the syringes, then capped the ends. After she’d filled nine of them, she handed a few to Malin. He tucked them in his shirt pocket, point down for ready access. The nurse handed a couple more to Elna, then kept two for herself.
“Supply closet is across from the elevators,” Nurse Aubrey said. “We always keep some water bottles in there. I’m not sure how you want to do this…”
“I’ve got an idea,” Elna said. “Follow me.”
Clutching the syringes in her left hand, the kitchen knife in her right, she turned and started down the hall toward the supply closet door. Malin fell in beside her. As he did, he drew a syringe from his shirt pocket and examined it. She’d put three milliliters of sedative in it. Even if Mark got a full dose, it would take some time to work, wouldn’t it?
This is not our best plan, he thought.
Elna was reaching for the supply closet door when Malin heard footsteps in the stairwell and the bark of a two-way radio. He scarcely had time to react. With his elbow, he nudged Elna behind him as he moved toward the door. A figure appeared in the narrow window. With only a second to react, Malin had to drop either the knife or the syringe. He dropped the knife and pulled the cap off the syringe just as the door swung open.
The man who stepped through the door was stocky, with crudely cut black hair and beard, beady little eyes, and a neck almost thicker than his head. He wore an ill-fitting Army uniform that seemed to have been stolen from an Army surplus store, and it had a bright splash of fresh blood across the stomach. There was a pistol holstered at his right hip, a two-way radio on his left.
Malin tried to come at him from the side, staying out of his eyeline just long enough for the man to get through the door. That bought him maybe half a second before the man saw him, uttered a weird cry, and fumbled for the handgun.
“Don’t try it,” Malin shouted. He brought the syringe up and around, swung it as far and wide as he could, hoping to catch the man in t
he neck.
Instead of grabbing his gun, the man raised his forearm and blocked Malin’s strike. Then he used Malin’s momentum, stepping forward and turning, shoving Malin past him so that he slammed into the doorframe. The thud was especially loud, echoing up the stairwell like a drumbeat. As he turned for another strike, Malin saw the man pull the radio from his hip and raise it to his mouth. He lunged again, tightening his grip on the syringe and swinging it at the man.
The man danced backward, lowering the radio just in time to avoid getting jabbed in the arm. The needle swung past him, missing by inches, before stopping suddenly. Malin felt it sink into some pliable surface, and only registered a second later that he’d inadvertently stabbed Nurse Aubrey in the left shoulder. It looked like she’d been trying to sneak up on the looter while he was preoccupied. Unfortunately, the strength of Malin’s strike shoved the needle through her scrubs and into her shoulder all the way to the hub.
“Sorry, sorry.” Malin didn’t have time to say much more. He drew his arm back, yanking the syringe out, and tried to rush the man again. The looter had shuffled back out of reach, raising the radio to his mouth, even as he drew the handgun.
Failed right out of the gate, Malin thought. So much for our little rescue effort.
And then Elna rose up behind the man, having snuck up behind him. Like an expert medic subduing a rowdy patient, she wrapped her left arm around his chest and drove a syringe into the side of his neck. Startled, he stopped backing away and gasped, even as she pushed the plunger all the way down with her thumb.
Malin used the man’s moment of surprise to rush him again, grabbing both hands, forcing both the gun and radio down to his side. In the process, he dropped his syringe. The radio gave a little hiss, and the voice of Mark spoke through the tinny speaker.
“Hey, Carl, was that you?” he said. “I thought you started to say something. What’s up?”
Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 48
