The man let go of the radio and reached for his neck instead. The radio fell, hit the ground, and tumbled. Malin managed to wrestle the gun out of his other hand, turning it around and pointing it at him.
“No, no, don’t shoot,” the man said. Was he already slurring his words? Could the drug have acted that quickly? Malin didn’t know, but the fight had clearly gone out of him.
Elna still had her arm around him and, as she pulled the empty syringe out of his neck, she led him backward into the nearest patient room. He shuffled along with her, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” he said. “It wasn’t me. It was Tomek and Dr. Baker. Believe me.”
“We believe you,” Elna replied, stepping around the man and shoving him into the room.
He stumbled, hit the foot of the bed, and slid down onto the floor. His whole body seemed to be shaking, and when he tried to speak again, he only uttered a long moan. Elna shut the door. Nurse Aubrey approached, rubbing her left shoulder.
“I didn’t mean to jab you like that,” Malin said. “Sorry about that, Nurse.”
“It’s fine,” she replied, in a tight voice that suggested otherwise. “Fortunately, you didn’t hit the plunger. I guess we’d better tie him up. It’ll take a minute before the drug knocks him out.”
Malin picked up the syringe and put the cap back in place, sliding it into his shirt pocket. Then he followed the nurse into the room. The looter was already glassy-eyed, staring dumbly at the ceiling. They used tubing from an oxygen machine to tie his wrists and ankles together. By the time they finished, the man was unconscious and already drooling.
“They might come looking for him,” Elna said. “There was radio contact. When he doesn’t reply, Mark will wonder what’s up.”
“Well, let’s slide him out of sight then,” Malin said.
Working together, the three of them managed to drag the looter behind the bed, turning the bed slightly so that he was well hidden. Then they left him there, shut off the lights and closed the door. Aubrey used her keycard to lock the door. Just then, the two-way radio barked again. It had survived its fall and lay on its side near the stairway door.
“What’s going on down there,” said the voice. Malin was pretty sure it was Tomek this time. “Is there a situation? Do we need to send someone? Come back.”
Malin swooped down, grabbed the radio, and turned the volume down.
“Well, folks, I think we’re on to Plan B,” he said, holding up the handgun and shaking it. “They know something’s wrong. They’re bound to come down here looking for their guy.”
“What are you suggesting?” Elna replied. “I hope you don’t think a single handgun changes the balance of power.”
“I think we’re not going to have time to poison water bottles and entice them to drink,” Malin said. “That’s what I think. Once they’re sure something’s up, it’s going to become a hell of a lot harder to get Raymond. We act now, or we don’t act at all.”
Elna stood there for a moment, furiously gnawing on her lower lip.
“Elevator or stairs,” she said, after a moment.
“What?” Malin replied.
“Elevator or stairs,” she said again. “Which way do you want to go?”
“Oh, stairs, definitely. I don’t want to risk getting cornered in the elevator. We’re in this deep now, Elna. There’s nothing else to be done. We rush in, try to get Raymond, hopefully grab your medications, and get out of here.”
He could see she still wanted to turn this over in her head a few times, but he didn’t give her a chance. Turning, he opened the stairwell door as softly as he could and slipped through. The gun was a sleek, black Glock, with the number 19 etched on the side of the rack, alongside with the number 9x19. He dropped the magazine to make sure it was loaded and saw a 9mm cartridge on top. Sliding the magazine home, he started up the stairs, moving fast but trying to make as little sound as possible.
A voice was speaking through the radio, but he’d turned the volume down so low, he couldn’t tell what it was saying. To free his other hand, he turned off the radio and slipped it in his pocket. Three turns in the stairwell brought them to the third-floor doorway. Malin ducked down below the level of the narrow window and glanced over his shoulder to see Elna and Nurse Aubrey moving up behind him.
Malin pressed a finger to his lips, held up the pistol, then pointed at the door. He intended to go in quietly, but as soon as violence broke out, he would do what he had to. No complicated Elna plan this time.
Elna and Aubrey moved to the right side of the door. Malin moved to the left. He felt his heart thundering in his throat. Adrenaline burned in his belly.
Move quick. Get it done. Don’t hesitate to fight.
He turned and reached for the door. Just then, it flew open. He scarcely had a moment to react before one of Mark’s crew strode through the door into the stairwell. A wiry little guy in a black t-shirt, with wild hair and a face speckled with sores. Tomek. The dude reeked like a hundred years of barrel-aged armpits. Because he was moving fast, he made it all the way through the door before he noticed the others in the stairwell. When he did, he stopped suddenly and spun to face Malin, reaching for his gun.
Acting on instinct, Malin lunged at him, driving his right shoulder against the man’s chest. The strength of his blow surprised him, as Tomek went flying backward. He hit a corner of the handrail at the top of the stairs, then tumbled violently down the steps. As he did, he cried out, a shrill sound that ended abruptly when he hit the unyielding tiles on the second-floor landing. The back of Tomek’s head bounced off the floor and he came to a stop, limp as a bag of water, against the wall below.
As the echo of his cry faded, Malin heard someone shouting in the distance beyond the third-floor door. This was followed by a second shout. Then a third.
Well, they know we’re here, he thought.
“Time for a fight,” he said, softly. “No getting out of it this time, friends.”
29
Elna had a syringe in either hand. With her teeth, she pulled off the caps one at a time. Then she placed both syringes in her right hand and drew the kitchen knife out of her pocket. She wanted to turn back, to retreat to some inner room so they could make a smarter, better, safer plan than this. But Malin was already moving through the door, leading with the Glock, and she knew their opportunity to retreat was gone.
She signaled for Nurse Aubrey to stay put, but the nurse shook her head and followed her to the door. Like Elna, she had an uncapped syringe in her right hand. Weaponized medicine. Elna wasn’t going argue with her—if she was determined to join the fight, so be it.
Moving through the door, Elna found herself in a wide hallway cluttered with medical equipment. A sign above a pair of open double doors just ahead read Intensive Care Unit. She didn’t see anyone else on the floor yet, but she heard raised voices somewhere ahead of them.
“Room 345,” Nurse Aubrey said from behind her. “That’s where your friend is. Near the end of the hall.”
Malin gave her a thumbs-up as he rushed through the double doors. Elna stuck close, careful not to jab herself as her arms swung on either side. They were maybe halfway down the hall when another one of the looters rushed around the corner ahead of them, a pistol in his hand. As soon as he saw them, he shouted and stumbled to a stop.
The deafening crack of a gunshot filled the hallway. In the chaos, her ears ringing, Elna wasn’t sure who had fired until the she saw the gang member stumble to one side, grab his chest, and collapse. He landed face down.
“The rifle,” Elna said. “Get the rifle.”
But even as she was speaking, she heard a door whoosh open behind her. Spinning around, she saw another gang member come from one of the ICU rooms behind them. Nurse Aubrey was right in the line of fire. Elna thrust her arm out, caught the nurse by the stomach and diverted her toward the nearest open door, then followed her into the room. As Nurse Aubrey flailed about, trying t
o keep her balance, one of her syringes came dangerously close to Elna’s face, light glinting off the point just in front of Elna’s eye.
Trying to avoid it, she dropped to one knee, catching herself against a corner of the hospital bed. Nurse Aubrey kept going to the far wall, hit it, and rebounded into a heart monitor machine. Elna looked over her shoulder through the open door. Malin hadn’t followed them, but the gang member was standing across the hall with a rifle in his hands. She kicked the door, and it swung shut with a bang.
“This is one of the dumber things we’ve ever done,” she muttered. “Next time, we’re going with Plan C, whatever the hell that is.”
She heard Malin curse loudly in the hall, followed by the slamming of a nearby door. She crawled back across the room and pressed her ear to the door, but the hallway seemed to have gone quiet. Hopefully, Malin had ducked into another room.
“They’ll lock us in here if they have a keycard,” Nurse Aubrey said. “Open it before they have a chance!”
Elna felt a sudden surge of panic. The idea of being locked in a room again was too much. Whatever the danger, she wouldn’t let it happen. She grabbed the door handle and eased it open, shielding herself with the door as it swung inward. The gang member was gone, as if he’d just winked out of existence. Holding her breath, Elna slowly eased her head around the doorframe, bracing an arm against the wall in case she needed to quickly duck back out of sight.
When she looked in the direction the gang member had come from, she saw only the empty hall leading to the stairwell. She turned the other direction and had to keep from crying out. The gang member had pressed himself up against the wall just beyond their door, and he was sliding along to the next room. He had the rifle in one hand, a keycard in the other. As he approached the door, he raised the keycard.
She assumed Malin was in the room. Reacting without really thinking—a rare feat for her—Elna leapt out of the room and rushed at the gang member. He heard her coming, even as he reached up to the small lock-plate beside the door. Flinging herself on his back, she drove one of the syringes deep into his neck, dropping the other one in the process. He shrieked and thrashed, almost bucking her off like a wild bull, but she managed to get her thumb against the plunger. Just before she went flying, she pushed it.
“What did you do? What did you do?” he wailed.
He dropped the rifle and the keycard, grabbing at the syringe with both hands. In the process, he managed to dislodge Elna, and she fell to the ground. He pulled the syringe out and cast it aside, making strangled noises as he stumbled back against the wall. Elna rose to her hands and knees and crawled toward the rifle.
“Don’t move.”
She looked up into the face of the first gang member—the one Malin had shot in the chest. He stood over her, aiming the pistol down at her face. He was nearly as filthy as Grover, a dust-monster crawled out of a crypt, with a stained Army jacket and loose pants. Elna saw no blood on him, no sign of injury.
“I’ve got one of your friends,” the gang member shouted. “Surrender yourselves or I shoot her!”
Even as he said it, however, the door behind him swung open and Malin stepped into the hall. Silent as a ghost, he pressed the barrel of the Glock against the back of the man’s head.
“Lower the gun,” Malin said, speaking through his teeth, “or you die.”
The gang member’s face collapsed, but he lowered his hand. As he did, the collar of his jacket parted, and Elna saw what she thought was a flak jacket underneath. The second his gun was no longer pointed at her, Malin stabbed him with a syringe just below his right ear. The gang member lurched backward, but Malin shoved him up against the wall and pressed the plunger all the way down.
“You deserve a nap after your long day of looting hospitals, buddy,” Malin said. He let go of the syringe and pulled the pistol out of the man’s hand. Then he kicked him through the open door.
The second gang member was swaying on his feet, his eyes wide with disbelief. Nurse Aubrey came out of her room then and went toward him.
“Put them in the same room and lock the door,” Elna said.
Malin stooped down and retrieved the keycard as Nurse Aubrey grabbed the second gang member by the arm and guided him. Elna had just bent down to grab the rifle when she saw a shadow moving along the ground. She turned back and spotted him
A massive figure loomed just inside the double doors. Somehow, he’d come from the direction of the stairwell, using the commotion to approach without being seen or heard. He looked bigger than ever, a giant in a long, black coat with wavy hair. His prominent forehead cast his eyes into shadow. Making almost no sound, he stopped and raised a silver pistol, aiming it over Nurse Aubrey’s head, directly at Malin. Because Malin was wrestling the drugged security gang member into the room, he didn’t notice.
Nurse Aubrey, seeing the silver gun, cried out, and Malin spun around. He locked eyes with Mark, and for a tense second, neither spoke. Elna froze, still reaching toward the rifle but too far to grab it.
“I took the elevator. You took the stairs,” Mark said. His voice was so deep, Elna could practically feel the vibration of his words in the air around here. “Seems we passed each other, but here we are. Thanks for getting me inside the clinic, by the way. I really do appreciate it. I’ve been trying to figure out how I could get my hands on more meds, which are worth more than gold, and this place is better than robbing a bank. Shame we can’t part on better terms.”
“Oh, shut up,” Malin said. “You’d better not have hurt Raymond.”
“I killed a couple of people, as I recall,” Mark said. “Don’t remember which ones.” He shrugged and gave Malin his weird little smile.
Malin started to say something. Instead, however, he suddenly shoved the drugged man. The man made a sound deep in his throat, almost a gurgle, and fell against Nurse Aubrey. This, in turn, pushed the nurse toward Mark, who tried to dance back out of the way. He wasn’t quite fast enough, and she slammed into his stomach. To keep from going down, Mark swung his arms and shuffled to one side.
Malin leapt over the fallen gang member, pushed off the ground, and slammed into Mark. He caught him around the middle with both arms, tackling him, and they both fell hard against the tile floor. Elna heard Mark’s breath leave him in a rush as the two men slid backward in a tangle.
In the process, Mark lost his grip on the pistol and it clattered off across the hall, tumbling through an open door into an ICU room. Immediately, the men began wrestling, Mark trying to dislodge Malin, while Malin tried to get his hand around the man’s throat.
“You’re not as tough as you think you are,” Mark said, snarling between each word. “I’ve dealt with men twice your size. I was never intimidated by you.”
Malin threw a punch that glanced off Mark’s cheek. Mark responded with a punch that was like a sledgehammer blow. He hit Malin square in the mouth, sending his head rocking back on his shoulders. Blood spattered on the gray tiles. Mark followed this up with a second blow that hit Malin in the chest. Malin struck Mark with his forearm, driving it against his neck and forcing his head against the floor, but Mark punched him a third time. This time he hit the side of Malin’s head, just above his ear.
Elna could see how this would go. Malin was out of his league. She reached for the rifle, grabbed it by the strap, and pulled it toward her. Sleek and black, it had a rubberized handle and a short magazine. Fortunately, the safety was clearly marked. She flicked it off, set the butt against her shoulder, and turned.
Malin and Mark were writhing like rabid animals now, punching and kicking, swinging their heads about as they tried to bash each other. She saw blood running from a gash above Malin’s left eye, trickling into his beard. He was clearly on the losing end of the fight, and as she watched, he took another massive blow to the face. He swooned, gagged, and spat blood onto the floor.
I just need an opening, Elna thought, her finger brushing the trigger. Come on, Malin. Give me an opening.
/> 30
Malin was on top of Mark, leaving Elna no way to fire without putting him at risk. The hard floor posed an extra risk of ricochet, but she moved around the men, looking for a better angle. Malin was dazed, but he continued to fight like an animal, growling and cursing as he flailed at his enemy.
Nurse Aubrey had managed to get out from under the drugged gang member, who was now completely unconscious, breathing loudly and wetly through his mouth, his arms and legs spread. The nurse had dropped her syringes at some point. Elna learned this the hard way when she stepped on one of them. It rolled, and she almost lost her balance. The syringe rolled toward Malin and Mark.
“Malin, get away from him,” she said. “Get out of his reach.”
“I’ve got this,” he said, blood on his teeth.
“No, let me deal with him,” Elna shouted.
“Stay out of this,” Mark growled, punching Malin in the side of the head again. “This is between us!”
Elna resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the ridiculous testosterone. When she heard the stairwell door again, she brought the rifle around, expecting another rush of Mark’s crew. Instead, she saw a rather diminutive blonde woman in white scrubs standing beside a young African-American man in a dark-blue EMT’s uniform. They gaped at the fighting, clearly shocked.
“Aubrey, who the hell are these people?” the EMT said, gesturing at Malin and Mark. “Are they fighting each other?”
“Tyler, help us,” Aubrey cried. “The guy in the black coat! He’s the one in charge of the gang!”
But the EMT and the little blonde doctor beside him just continued to gawk. Malin finally planted his hands against Mark’s chest and pushed himself away. As soon as they parted, Elna tried to aim into the opening, but then Mark threw a massive haymaker—all the more impressive considering the fact that he was lying on his back—and hit Malin right in the jaw. Malin unleashed an explosive breath and collapsed onto Mark’s chest, more blood spattering onto the floor.
Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 49
