The agent took aim. Before he could take the shot, he heard a click. The master circuit breaker on the electrical control panel had been thrown. The windowless room fell into darkness.
Disoriented in the now pitch-black room, Hanover waited for the emergency lighting system to engage, then looked at the electrical panel where seconds earlier he had seen the man.
Gone.
Hanover called out. “I’m not surprised you like the dark. Most rodents do.”
No response.
Hanover slowly retraced his steps. Sections of the metal catwalk creaked under his weight. He cursed the sound. The beam of the Glock’s laser sight illuminated airborne dust particles, sliced through the darkness, and danced off the walls and heavy equipment in the room. He switched off the device.
“Why try to kill Mrs. Quest?” Hanover yelled.
No reply.
Movement in the shadows, behind the bank of boilers.
Hanover reached the top of the ladder. He knew the descent would leave him exposed, temporarily vulnerable. He had no choice. If the orderly were to choose this moment to flee through the far exit doors it would be impossible for him to race down the ladder, run across the room, make his way up the stairs and out the door in time to see in which direction he had escaped. He would lose Jordan’s attacker and the engineers murderer. The man would be free to kill again. He wasn’t about to let that happen.
Hanover descended the service ladder, one hand on the rung, the other on the Glock, until he reached the ground. Anticipating an attack, he swept the weapon left to right, then stopped and listened to the room for sounds of movement, heard none.
Had he missed something? Perhaps throwing the breaker was a calculated act of misdirection intended to provide the killer an opportunity to escape. The man had already established himself to be a professional, and no self-respecting pro would ever put himself in a position for which an exfiltration plan had not already been considered.
Hanover inspected the room for an alternate exit.
On the floor behind the boiler he found what he feared: a raised metal hatch. He unclipped his flashlight from his belt, cradled it under his weapon, and clicked it on. The bright beam illuminated the entrance to a sub-basement. He turned off the light, holstered the weapon, and descended into the darkness.
No sooner had he placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder when from behind him came a strange sound –zzzzip– followed by the sensation of a metal wire looping around his neck, cutting deep into his throat. The assailant pulled him up and out of the hatch. Hanover kicked furiously at the floor as the man dragged him backwards into the middle of the room. The open hatch had been a decoy, a trap, and he had fallen for it.
White hot pain seized him by the throat, cut off his airway. He was growing weaker by the second, his vitality leaving his body.
He was losing consciousness.
CHAPTER 21
WITHIN FEET of reaching the tree line Zoe stumbled, fell hard, grabbed her ankle, and cried out. Shannon ran back for her sister.
“Are you out of your mind?” Zoe yelled. “Don’t stop! Go!”
Shannon knelt down, placed one arm around her neck, the other her waist. “You think for a second I’m leaving you behind? Not happening.”
Lily pointed at the main house. “Hurry,” she cried. “They’re coming!”
Minutes ago, the only light emanating from inside the house came from the ever-changing glow of the television screen. Now, both the back porch and perimeter security lights were on, casting the grounds and stables in harsh, fluorescent light.
An elderly man, heavy-set, dressed in a T-shirt and overalls, walked out the back door. He stepped down the stairs and surveyed the grounds, his attention drawn to the open stable door. “Denny?” he yelled. “Where you at, boy?”
“That’s Uncle Emmett!” Lily cried. Shannon pulled her to the ground and covered her mouth, hushing her, fearing the girl’s voice would carry across the dense mist. Though a thousand feet away, Shannon could hear the man’s voice clearly. He called out once more. Not receiving a response, he returned to the house, and returned a few seconds later, shotgun in hand, accompanied by two younger men.
Shannon whispered to Zoe. “Can you walk?”
Zoe held her ankle. “Not sure.”
“What happened?”
“Fucking tree root.”
“Potty mouth,” Lily whispered.
Zoe stared at girl. “Yes, that would be true,” she said, massaging her ankle. “I indeed have a potty mouth.”
“You shouldn’t swear,” Lily said.
“Why not? It fucking hurts.”
“Swearing shows a lack of intelligence and is a verbal indication of an underdeveloped mind.”
“Is that so?” Zoe replied. “And who might I ask told you that?”
“My parents.”
Zoe relented and accepted the chastising she had just received from the young girl. “Sorry, Lily. My bad. Your parents were right. Swearing is wrong.”
Lily grinned triumphantly.
“It’s a habit of mine. Terrible. You shouldn’t do it.”
“That’s right,” Shannon added.
“However,” Zoe whispered, “with all due respect to your parents, you should know that there will be times in your life when swearing up a storm will feel like the most appropriate response to a given situations. Especially a highly stressful one.”
“Really?” Lily asked. “Like when?”
“Oh, let me think,” Zoe said. “How about when you’re running from a fucking death house, trip on a fucking tree root, and almost break your fucking ankle. Yep, that qualifies.”
Lily stared at her, speechless.
“I think you made your point,” Shannon said. “How’s the ankle?”
“Hurts like a sonofabitch. But I’ll be okay.”
Shannon watched the men walk down the steps, cross the yard, enter the stables, and turn on the lights. Seconds later, the sound of screaming and yelling rose above the cries of the horses.
“Sounds like they found Denny,” Zoe said.
Shannon nodded. “We have to get out of here. They’ll come looking for us any second.”
“You better help me up,” Zoe said. Shannon pulled her sister to her feet. Zoe tested the ankle.
“How is it?” Shannon asked.
“I’ll survive.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Damn straight.”
Lily said, “I know a place in the woods where we can hide. Dad called it the secret place.”
“Secret?” Zoe said. She looked toward the stables. Flashlight beams escaped through slits in the walls of the building. “Do they know about it?”
Lily shook her head. “I don’t think so. Dad was very careful. He warned Mom and I never to tell anyone else about it.”
“Think you can find it in the dark?” Zoe asked.
“I can try.”
“Good enough. Which way are we going?”
Lily pointed into the forest, east of where they were standing. “That way.”
“All right,” Zoe said. “Let’s go.” Using Shannon for support, she shuffled a few steps then stood on her own and retested the ankle. “Resting it helped,” she said. “Must have just rolled it a little.” She took another tentative step. No pain. “I’m good,” she said.
Commotion behind them.
Cloaked in the ethereal forest fog they watched the two men run out of the stable. Uncle Emmett lumbered behind, shifting his weight as he stepped through the door in order to accommodate his large frame. He stopped, stared at the woods, then yelled into the night: “You’re dead, you hear me? All of you. Fucking dead!”
From back of the stable the sound of revving engines broke the stillness of the night. The men re-appeared on ATV’s, raced them around to the backyard of the house. One man stayed with the idling all-terrain vehicles while the other ran inside, returning a few seconds later. Zoe watched him shove something into his w
aistband and toss an object to the other man. Guns. They were armed now, coming after them, and no doubt would kill them when they found them. Apparently, they hadn’t taken too well to the discovery of Denny’s corpse, human shit-stain that he was.
This was their property, their woods, and no doubt they knew every square inch of the land. True, they had home field advantage. But what they didn’t have was them. Zoe intended to keep it that way for as long as she could.
She remembered her life of horror with her birth father and the six-word mantra she created to help her navigate the turbulent waters of her young life: Never again. Live or die. Live.
“Show us the way, Lily,” Zoe said. “We’re running out of time.”
Behind them, outside the stables, Zoe watched the ATV’s lighting systems flash on, casting an amber glow over the moonlit fog. The men raced the machines engines, dropped the vehicles into gear, and raced toward the forest.
Lily panicked. She screamed. The men heard her, looked in their direction.
“Run!” Shannon yelled. “Wherever this secret place is Lily, you better find it... now!”
CHAPTER 22
FIFTEEN MINUTES late for the start of his shift, Abe Carmichael jogged along the hospital corridor and burst through the double doors into the Mechanical Room. He expected to encounter one very miffed John Skelton cooling his heels as he waited for him, unable to leave the sensitive equipment unattended until his arrival. Recently Carmichael had made a habit of being late for work, due to his inability to limit his late-night consumption of cheap Scotch to just one shot or two, opting instead to kill half the bottle. Passing out and waking up well past his alarm had become the norm of late. This morning, looking down from the top of the landing, he encountered John Skelton, his friend and co-worker of the past ten years, lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs. A man was being dragged into the center of the room by a hospital orderly Abe did not recognize. He was clawing at his neck. It was clear the orderly was trying to choke him to death.
“Hey!” Abe yelled. He jumped over the metal railing to the ground, landed squarely on his feet, and put his six-foot four, two-hundred and fifty-pound frame into gear. He ran at the orderly like the former college linebacker he was, hellbent on a sacking the man’s attacker.
Rigel saw the man enter the room, heard him call out. Dammit! All he had needed was another few seconds and Zippy would have taken care of the cop. Now he had another hero to deal with. Reluctantly, he released the FBI agent. Hanover slid to the ground, gasping for air. Rigel kept his back to the human freight train barreling towards him listening to his footsteps, timing his defense. At the last second, he turned, grabbed the man by his outstretched hand, wrenched his wrist tightly, and heard him cry out as he drove the man’s arm under him in a smooth, circular motion.
Carmichael flew through the air. He hit the ground, hard, several yards away.
Rigel heard the man's clavicle break as it met the concrete floor.
Carmichael lay on the ground, disoriented, trying to comprehend what had just happened. A second earlier he had the man in his sights, ready not just to tackle him but to careen right through him, pick him up, run him the length of the room if necessary, slam him hard into the wall, knock him unconscious, call hospital security, tend to the wounded man, then check on his friend. Instead he lay on the ground, staring up at the metal catwalk. He’d experienced his share of football injuries in his day and knew one thing was certain: his shoulder was broken. The man, though smaller than him but stocky and athletic in his own right, was obviously a highly-skilled martial artist. He had taken advantage of his powerful momentum, turned it deftly against him, and evaded the attack like nothing he had experienced before, and done so with little effort. Carmichael fought against the white-hot pain, rolled on his uninjured side, and struggled to his knees. He tried to fend off the man’s offensive attack, a brutal kick to his ribs, couldn’t, and fell to the floor. He pulled his legs up to his chest, protecting his vital organs, tasted blood, then heard a strange sound above him- zzzippp. He looked up. The orderly was standing over him, a braided metal cord stretched between his hands. “Fucking hero,” the orderly said as he straddled his back. “I really, really, really hate fucking hero’s.” Carmichael felt the cold steel loop around his neck.
The gunshot narrowly missed Rigel. He dove to the side, used the big man for cover, watched Hanover’s arm drop and the weapon fall to the ground, and used the opportunity to escape. He scrambled away from the maintenance engineer as the cop retrieved his weapon, raised it again, and squeezed off a second round. The bullet whizzed across his cheek, grazed his skin, and pinged off the metal boiler under which he had taken cover. He slipped out from beneath the boiler, ran toward the open floor hatch, pulled the safety flare from his waistband, cracked its safety seal, and threw it into the center of the room beyond the reach of the cop.
Chris Hanover struggled to his feet, choking on the acrid smoke billowing from the flare which had quickly begun to fill the room.
A voice called out from the other side of the caustic cloud. “Are you nuts? This room is filled with high pressure equipment. You want to blow us the hell up? Stop firing!”
Carmichael emerged from the smoke. He was in obvious pain and struggled to walk. Slowly, he made his way to Hanover.
“FBI!” Hanover yelled. “Stop where you are!”
“Hey man,” Carmichael said. “I just got a broken shoulder and probably a few broken ribs trying to save your ass. Least you could do is not shoot me.”
Hanover lowered the Glock and headed in the direction of the orderlies last known position. “Did you see where he went?”
“Hell, no!” Carmichael replied. “I was too busy trying not to die.”
“Call security,” Hanover commanded. “I need to find him before he leaves the hospital.”
“And tell them what?” Carmichael said. “That you’re looking for an orderly… in a hospital?”
Hanover spied an open hatch in the floor, saw the orderly lower the cover. He ran, stumbled, reached the cover, tried to pry it open, couldn’t. Locked. He heard shuffling beneath the concrete floor, moving away from him.
Carmichael had caught up to him. “Where does this lead?” Hanover asked.
“Everywhere,” the engineer replied. “It’s a subterranean service level, mostly electrical gear.”
“Is there an exit point?”
“An exit point? Try dozens of them, all over the hospital.”
The smoke from the burning flare had risen to the ceiling, reached the fire detection system and activated the emergency sprinkler valves. Water sprayed down upon the two men.
Carmichael tried to raise his hand and shield his face from the water, but his broken ribs restricted his mobility. “You’re FBI?” he asked.
Hanover nodded. “Yeah.”
Carmichael winced as he raised his shirt and inspected his damaged ribs.
“You saved my life back there,” Hanover said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“How’re the ribs?”
“Better than your neck by the look of it. Who the hell is that guy?”
In the melee, Hanover had forgotten about the laceration he sustained from the metal cord. He massaged his neck, checked his fingers for blood, found none, shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’m damn well going to find out.” He pointed to the hatch. “I need to know the termination points for this network. Can you get me a set of blueprints?”
“You bet.”
“I need them yesterday.”
Carmichael nodded, then shuffled toward the staircase. “On it.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Hanover asked. “That was a pretty bad spill you took.”
Carmichael played down the near-incapacitating pain in his shoulder and wrist. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, opening the door at the top of the landing. “I’ll get checked out later. Right now, I want this prick as badly as you do.”
&nb
sp; “Special Agent Chris Hanover,” Chris said, identifying himself to the big man. “Have the hospital page me when you get those blueprints.”
“Abe Carmichael. Will do.”
Hanover waited until Carmichael left the room, then called Dunn. “Sir, you need to get the family out of here and lock down the hospital,” he said. “Someone just tried to kill Mrs. Quest.”
“Is she all right?” Dunn replied.
“I think so. I’m heading back to her room now.”
“Carnevale and I will meet you there. Where are you?”
“Basement, mechanical room. Whoever tried to take out Mrs. Quest just tried to kill me too.”
“You all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have him in custody?”
“No, sir. But he’s still somewhere in the facility. He killed one civilian, tried to kill another.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Sir, under the circumstances, I think Mrs. Quest and her family should be placed into protective custody immediately. It’s starting to look like that plane crash was no accident.”
“I agreed,” Dunn said. “You stay with Jordan. I’ll assign a team to the estate. We’re on our way.”
Chris returned to the sixth floor. Jordan’s nurse stood outside her room talking to the security guard.
“How’s she doing?” Chris asked. He stepped inside, checked on Jordan, saw she was sleeping.
“Stable,” the nurse replied, “and scared to death.”
Hanover turned to the guard and pointed to the security cameras mounted in the ceiling. “I need to see the footage from those cameras right away.”
“Yes, sir,” the guard replied.
CHAPTER 23
HARRISON TASKER left the aircraft hangar and drove the sedan containing the body of the dead fire captain in its trunk to the Runway 69 Gentleman’s Club located on the outskirts of LAX airport. He parked beside his black Mustang GT, popped the trunk, removed a leather travel bag and entered the club. A heavily-tattooed biker, nicknamed ‘Grease,’ stood guard at the front door. Tasker tossed him the keys and motioned to the fire captain’s car. “One to go,” he said. The biker understood, nodded, removed his microphone from the clip on his shoulder and radioed for assistance. A second biker soon appeared, took the keys from Grease, hopped into the maroon sedan and drove off. The biker would make sure the fire captain and his vehicle were never seen again.
Intruders (A Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Book 1) Page 9
