by Jack Mars
“Sure,” Luke said. “Why not? What are you guys going to do?”
“We were going to go downtown. I wanted to go to the Air and Space Museum, and he wanted to go to the Spy Museum, naturally.”
Luke smiled. “Of course.”
“But now with this whole terror thing, I don’t know. Apparently they’re doubling security everywhere, especially tourist sites. It’s kind of scary. So I’m letting him sleep in for another hour, while I figure out something else to do. I guess we’ll have a late breakfast and then… what? Go to the movies? I doubt the terrorists will attack a movie theater in the suburbs during a matinee. Right?”
Now he almost laughed. “Ah… yeah. I don’t think they’d go to all this trouble if that was their target.”
“Maybe we’ll go to the indoor climbing gym after that, then get some crab cakes for lunch.”
“It sounds like a nice day.”
“Should we wait for you?” she said.
“I’d love to. But I’m waiting for a helicopter. I can’t predict when I’ll get home. Anyway, I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours.”
After they hung up, Luke closed his eyes and allowed himself to doze. Was Ed snoring next to him? It sure sounded like it. Luke imagined his future. The college semester was over now. He had taught a couple of adjunct classes, and he had enjoyed it. He could picture doing more of that, maybe going back for a master’s degree, and picking up a full professorship somewhere. A man like him, a former 75th Rangers and Delta Force special operations commando with worldwide deployments and combat experience, a former FBI counter-terrorism agent, there would be a place for him.
He pictured this upcoming summer. He and Becca had a small summer house on Chesapeake Bay. The house had been in her family for generations. It was in a beautiful spot, on a bluff overlooking the water. A rickety staircase hugged the bluff down to their boating and swimming dock. In the summers, Luke kept an old motorboat there. Gunner was an age now where Luke could teach him some things. Maybe Luke would get him out on water skis this year. Maybe he’d teach him how to drive the boat.
Luke created an image in his mind. It was of the three of them, sitting at the table on the back patio at the summer house, as the sun set over the water toward the west. It was the end of a long day of swimming and boating. They were eating steamed mussels, and a bottle of chilled white wine was open on the table. He could see it all in vivid detail. As they all sat and laughed, an air raid siren shattered the quiet. It howled and howled, the shriek of it rising and falling.
He opened his eyes. His phone was ringing.
“Are you going to answer that?” Ed Newsam said. “Or you want me to?”
Luke picked it up without looking to see who was calling.
“Stone,” he said.
“Luke, it’s Trudy. Listen, I know you lied to me. I know you’re suspended. That’s an issue for another time.”
“Okay.”
“Some information just came in. It’s up on the big board right now. A man was brought into Baltimore Memorial Hospital in critical condition about forty minutes ago. He has acute radiation poisoning and at least two gunshot wounds in his back. He was found by two fishermen under a highway overpass along the Baltimore waterfront.”
“Who is he?”
“His name is Eldrick Thomas. Also known as LT. Also known as Abdul Malik. Twenty-eight-year-old African American. Born and raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Substantial rap sheet, with multiple prison sentences over the past ten years. Assault, armed robbery, weapons possession. He is one strike away from going inside for a long time.”
“All right, he’s been a bad boy,” Luke said.
“More to the point, he was incarcerated with Ken Bryant on two occasions. Once for five months at Rikers Island, and once for almost two years at Clinton Correctional Center. He was affiliated with the same prison gang as Bryant, the Black Gangster Family. He converted from Christianity to Islam while in prison, and took on the Abdul Malik name. He had three disciplinary infractions where fights broke out because he was proselytizing to other inmates, especially about the need for jihad within the borders of the United States. One of these landed him in solitary confinement for a month.”
Luke was becoming alert. He glanced at Ed. Ed had picked up on Luke’s body language and sat up straight in his seat.
“Here’s the kicker,” Trudy said. “Eldrick Thomas and Ken Bryant were friends in prison. Their appearances were so similar that the other inmates, and the guards, often referred to them as the Twins. I’m looking at mug shots of them on Swann’s screen. They could be brothers. In fact, if you really wanted to take it that far, they could be mistaken for the same man.”
“Why is he in Baltimore?” Luke said.
“No one knows.”
“Has anyone spoken to him?”
“Negative. He was unconscious when they brought him in. He’s in surgery at this moment, getting the bullets removed. He’s under general anesthesia.”
“Is he going to live?”
“They expect him to survive surgery. Beyond that is anyone’s guess.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
He could feel her smile on the other end of the phone. “I just thought you might want to know.”
“Who are my chopper pilots?” Luke said.
“Rachel and Jacob,” Trudy said. “I ordered them special for you.”
“Friendlies,” Luke said.
“That’s right.”
The call ended. Luke glanced out at the water. A black Bell helicopter was coming in. That was their ride. His bug-out bag was at his feet. He opened it and pawed around for his Dexedrine pills. He found them and held the bottle up for Ed’s inspection.
“Dexies,” Ed said. “I used to live on them in Afghanistan. Take ’em long enough and they’ll kill you, ya know.”
Luke nodded.
“I know.”
He opened the bottle and carefully poured two capsules into his palm. One half of each capsule was reddish-brown, the other half clear.
“It looks like we have one more shot at this, if we want it. You up for bending a few more rules this morning?”
Ed took a capsule from between Luke’s fingers. He popped it in his mouth and swallowed. He glanced at his watch.
“I think I can make some time.”
Chapter 20
Zero Hour
Between Alive and Dead
He drifted, listening to the sounds.
Music was playing, some kind of quiet classical music with violins and piano. The people gathered around him were talking in mechanical voices.
“Scissors. Scalpel. Suction. I said suction! Can’t you clear that out some more?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Then: “He was lucky. An inch to the left and it would have nicked his aorta. He’d have been dead in a couple of minutes.”
Eldrick wasn’t interested in the doctors, and he wasn’t interested in the body on the table. They were all below him now, and he caught a glimpse of the thing the doctors were working so hard to save. It reminded him of a dead dog by the side of the road. It didn’t seem like something worth saving.
He turned and through the doorway he saw his grandmother in the next room, standing at the stove and stirring a pot. Something smelled really good.
“LT, get your butt in here.”
He ran in there. It was afternoon, the sun was shining outside the windows of their apartment, and he wanted to go down to the park and play some ball. But the smell of dinner was enough to make him shake with anticipation. It was a happy time, before everything had gone so wrong.
“You finish your homework, honey?”
“Yes, Grandma.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
He smiled.
She turned to him, and her face was serious. “You’ve done a bad thing, haven’t you?”
He wasn’t a child after all. He was a grown man, and she was the little old la
dy she became before breast cancer took her away.
He nodded. “I did a bad thing.”
“Can you make it right?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know if anything will ever be right again.”
9:30 a.m.
Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center - Baltimore, Maryland
“Here come a couple of them,” Luke said.
He and Ed stood in a hospital corridor, about twenty yards from a door marked PHARMACY. A few moments before, Luke had tried to open it. It was locked. Up the hall, two men in blue scrubs and white lab jackets walked toward them. They were chatting and laughing about something.
There were surveillance cameras every at every corner. It didn’t matter. Luke planned to act fast. He was already in trouble. What was a little more?
“Excuse me, guys,” Luke said. “Are you men doctors?”
“Yes we are,” one said, a fit middle-aged guy in wire frame glasses. “What’s the trouble?”
Luke stepped close to the man. His gun was out. He pressed it to the man’s stomach, down low, away from the video cameras. He put a friendly hand on the man’s shoulder. “Don’t say a word, either of you.”
Ed stepped in close behind the second man. Luke could see a gun in Ed’s hand. He pressed the muzzle hard into the small of the second doctor’s back.
“We’re not going to hurt you, if you do exactly what I say.”
The first doctor, so confident a moment before, was trembling. “I…” he said. He couldn’t speak.
“It’s okay,” Luke said. “Don’t talk. I need you to open the door to the pharmacy over there. That’s all I need you to do. Open the door and come inside with me for a few minutes.”
The second doctor was calmer. He was balding, with thick glasses, more heavyset than the first. “That’s fine. If you need drugs, that’s fine. We’ll get you what you need. But there are security cameras everywhere. You’re not going to get very far.”
Luke smiled. “We’re not going very far.”
The men turned as a group and went to the door. The second doctor swiped his key card against the reader and the light turned green. Luke opened the door. Inside the room were numerous locked cabinets.
“What do you need?” the doctor said.
“Ritalin,” Luke said. “Two injections.”
“Ritalin?” the man said.
“Yes. Quickly now, I don’t have a lot of time.”
The doctor paused. “Sir, you won’t get high from Ritalin. If you have an attention deficit, you can easily get it with a prescription. You don’t have to go to all this trouble. There are programs that will help you pay. And anyway, Ritalin isn’t the preferred—”
Luke shook his head. “We’re not in school anymore, Doc. Let’s just assume I know what I’m doing, and you don’t know what I’m doing. Okay?”
The doctor shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He opened a cabinet, showed Luke the bottle, and prepared the injections. While he worked, Ed placed four plastic zip ties on the counter. He opened a drawer and found a couple of small hand towels and some surgical tape. He put the items next to the zip ties.
The doctor finished preparing the injections, and passed the syringes across the counter.
“Very good,” Luke said. “Thank you. Now I need you to do one more thing before we leave.”
“All right,” the doctor said.
“Take off your clothes,” Luke said. “Both of you.”
*
Luke and Ed, dressed in surgical gowns and gloves, walked through the crowd of police officers standing outside the door to Eldrick Thomas’s room. They paused and put their surgical masks on before they went in.
A yellow and black triangular sign was affixed to the door. DANGER: RISK OF RADIATION.
Beneath that was another sign. It was a series of instructions.
A. Visits limited to 1 hour per day. No pregnant women or persons under age 18 should visit the patient.
B. Visitors should remain at least 6 feet from the patient.
C. Visitors must be protected with gowns, shoe covers, and gloves. Visitors should not handle any items in the room.
D. Visitors must not smoke, eat, or drink while in the patient’s room.
A cop touched Luke on the arm. “When can we expect him to wake up?”
Luke gave him the serious doctor face. “You mean if he wakes up. We’re doing the best we can. You guys just need to wait a little longer.”
They went inside. Thomas lay flat on a hospital bed, asleep. Random spots on his face and neck were flushed a deep, dark red. His wrists and ankles were fastened to the metal rails of the bed with plastic flex cuffs. Various machines monitored his vital signs. Two cops in surgical masks and gloves stood in one corner, as far from Thomas as the room would allow.
“Guys, can you please give us a few minutes with the patient?” Ed said.
“We’re not supposed to leave the room,” one cop said.
Ed said the magic words, the ones that would start a bureaucratic shoving match if the patient weren’t radioactive. “I’m sorry, but your presence conflicts with the provision of medical care.” Then he smiled. “Anyway, the guy is tied to the bed. He’s not going anywhere. Just give us a minute, okay?”
The cops went out, probably happy to get away.
Luke walked straight to Thomas’s side. He took the cap off the syringe, turned Thomas’s left arm, found the thick vein at the crook of his elbow, and gave him the injection.
“Ritalin, huh?” Ed said.
Luke shrugged. “It brings people right out of general anesthesia. Not exactly FDA approved, but it works like a charm.”
He stepped back. “Shouldn’t be long.”
A minute passed, then two minutes. Halfway through the third minute, Luke thought he saw a slight flutter in the eyelids.
“Eldrick,” he said. “Wake up.”
Eldrick’s eyes slowly opened. He blinked. He looked very tired. He looked like he was a hundred years old.
“My chest hurts,” he said, his voice rising just above a whisper. He glanced slowly around without moving his head. “Where am I?”
Luke shook his head. “It doesn’t matter where you are. You were in New York last night. You stole radioactive materials from Center Medical Center. You were working with Ken Bryant and Ibrahim Abdulraman. They were both murdered. So were two security guards.”
Memory flooded into the man’s face. He barely moved a muscle. He seemed so weak that he could die any minute. But his eyes were hard. “Cops?” he said.
Luke nodded. “We need to know where and when the bomb goes off.”
Eldrick Thomas looked at Ed. He made a gesture with his head toward Luke. “Hey, bro. Get this white devil pig out of here.”
He closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again. “After that, I’ll tell you whatever I know.”
*
Luke waited in the hall, fifty yards down from the wall of cops. It wasn’t long before Ed came out. He walked quickly.
“Come on, man. Let’s go.”
Luke walked fast, keeping up with Ed’s pace. “What’s up?”
“I think he had a heart attack,” Ed said. “Maybe the Ritalin was too much for him. I don’t know. I hit the alarm before I left.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Yeah. He did.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know if I can believe it.”
Luke stopped. Ed stopped, too.
“We need to keep walking,” Ed said.
Luke shook his head. “What’s the target?”
Above their heads, the hospital intercom came on. A woman’s voice, calm, mechanical, almost robotic. Code Blue, Code Blue. Third Floor, Room 318. Third Floor, Room 318. Code Blue… Frantic doctors and staff ran past them in the halls, bumping shoulders.
“It’s timed for the start of Ramadan in Iran. 8:24 p.m., which is 10:54 a.m. here.” He looked at his watch. “Just over one hour from now.”
“Where
?” Luke demanded.
Ed stared back grimly. For the first time, Luke saw despair on Ed’s face.
“The White House.”
Chapter 21
10:01 a.m.
The skies between Baltimore and Washington DC
The pilots were bad-asses.
The chopper flew low and fast. The landscape buzzed by below them, almost close enough to touch. Luke barely noticed. He shouted into the telephone. He kept losing the call. The hand-off process from one cell tower to the next was iffy at over a hundred miles per hour.
“We need to evacuate the White House,” he said. “Trudy! Do you hear me?”
Her voice cut through the static. “Luke, there’s a warrant for your arrest. You and Ed. It just came through.”
“Why? Because of the doctors? We didn’t hurt them.”
There was a burst of static. The call dropped.
“Trudy? Trudy! Shit!”
He looked at Ed.
“He told me they were in the Dun-Rite Laundry van,” Ed said. “The signs were magnetic decals. They took them off in Baltimore, and changed the license plates. There may be surveillance cameras near where Thomas was found. They might pick up the trail on the van’s location that way.”
Luke’s phone rang. He picked it up.
“Trudy.”
“Luke, before you say another thing, let me speak. Eldrick Thomas is dead. He had a massive heart attack. You and Ed are on video surveillance. It’s clear in the video that you gave Thomas a shot of some kind.”
“Ritalin, to wake him up,” Luke said.
“Ed leaned in close just before Thomas died.”
“Trudy, Thomas was giving Ed the information. Do you understand? Eldrick Thomas is not the issue right now. The attack is planned for the White House. All the evidence points to a drone attack. They were in the Dun-Rite Laundry van. They changed the markings. We need to find the van and we need to get everyone out of the White House. Now.”
