by Allen Wyler
SARAH HEARD THE door bang open below and footsteps coming after her. She sped up, not bothering with the second-level door. She hit the third-floor landing, flung open the stairwell door, and ran to the door to the hospital, grabbed the knob, and twisted it. Crap! Locked.
Exactly like it had been two minutes ago. How could she forget!
Oh man! Now what?
At this time of night the only hospital entrance that didn’t require a key card was the emergency room. Which meant her only route out of the garage was the vehicle entrance and right through the group of gangbangers.
There was no other choice. She flew down the ramp toward level two just as the door to level three banged open. She rounded the corner heading for the entrance, hoping the bangers had moved on. But there they were, one guy passing a joint to another. A third, pants hanging off his butt, New York Yankees cap on backward, must’ve caught movement in his vision because he glanced straight at her, leaving her no choice but to continue straight toward them.
The banger looked her up and down appraisingly, grabbed his crotch, and yelled, “Yo, pretty mamma, looking for some action, ’cuz I got it for you.” He pumped his hips in time with the music blaring from the boom box.
Heart racing, she continued straight at him. “Get the fuck out my way.”
Glancing at the others, he said, “A spicy one too.”
The tallest one, face pocked from acne scars, said, “She way too nice for you, bro. Let her pass.”
Without another word they backed away as she hurried by.
32
MCCARTHY MADE IT to the third-floor landing, thinking if he made it out of here, his first priority would be to meet with Davidson. There had to be a way for him to negotiate a surrender that would exclude Sikes. He couldn’t believe the police would simply hand him over. On the other hand he couldn’t get rid of the image of Lee Harvey Oswald blown away in a hall of the Dallas Police Department with detectives on both sides and press clogging the hall around him.
But even if he survived Sikes and made it to lockup, he’d be branded a cop killer. Meaning, he’d be in deep shit. Meaning that before he surrendered, he’d better find a way to prove his innocence. For reasons he didn’t understand, he was being falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit. On top of proving he had never possessed, or for that matter seen, classified documents, he needed to prove he didn’t kill Maria or Washington.
Well, that’s why he had to put faith in Davidson.
But Davidson needed all the help he could get to build a credible defense.
So he was trapped in a circular argument. He needed to surrender so Davidson could protect him, but he couldn’t do that without giving Davidson something to prove his innocence. And the only evidence he could think of was the interviews obtained from Russell and Baker. Those had been obtained while undergoing long-term EEG monitoring—a diagnostic technique for diagnosing seizures in patients. Standard EEG electrodes are glued to the patient’s scalp and record twenty-four hours a day until their seizures occur, allowing the doctors to see exactly what electrical activity the brain is undergoing during the attack. Often, psychiatric or psychological testing is done with the electrodes in place and the audio and video recording of the interviews are burned onto DVDs for later analysis, then archived for several years. But the DVDs storage is in the seventh-floor inpatient lab, not down on the first floor. He was heading the wrong direction. Shit, shit, shit!
He glanced up the flight of stairs he just ran down. Seven floors.
A copy of the original recordings was in his office, but with the police there … Aw shit! He started back up the stairs.
He reached the seventh floor and opened the door to check the hall. The long corridor was empty. Then he was down the hall and inside the monitoring control room in less than a minute. Except to speak to an EEG tech, nurses never came here. On the few occasions when a problem with the recordings did arise during off hours, the nurses seldom had the time, expertise, or inclination to troubleshoot the electronics. But you never knew … with his luck today … He locked the door behind him just in case.
The room was warm and stuffy and silently oppressive. One wall was filled with side-by-side metal racks containing computers, LCD displays, sliding retractable shelves for a mouse and keyboard, and networking routers. Each unit connected to a patient room to continuously record that patient’s brainwaves. Another wall of shelves stored patient recordings for the preceding five years. He went directly to the shelf containing Charles Russell’s record.
And found the slot empty.
McCarthy’s heart accelerated, his chest constricted. Simply misfiled? Frantically he checked the jewel cases to either side but the DVD was gone.
Baker’s recordings were also missing.
One missing DVD he could accept as a mistake. But two? Specifically, Baker’s and Russell’s? That had to be intentional.
So, who removed them?
He flashed on the doctor impersonator, the one who tried to access the charts. Who was he? The description didn’t fit Wyse, but on second thought, it did fit the guy he clobbered with the pipe.
Time continued to evaporate. He checked his watch. He should be meeting Sarah now. If she didn’t find him waiting what would she do? Of all the contingency plans they discussed, this was not one.
He started out the door but heard footsteps approaching, so he ducked back inside, waited thirty seconds, and opened the door again. This time he heard only an overhead page and the distant rattle of wheels from a dietary cart. A second later he was across the hall and streaking down stairs.
MCCARTHY SLIPPED INSIDE the darkened outpatient laboratory and quietly shut the door, then whispered, “Sarah?” A stupid question—without a key she couldn’t be inside. Unlocking the door was the whole point of arriving ahead of her.
He realized that someone passing the door would be able to see him silhouetted against the Venetian blinds, so he crouched behind a desk and waited for his eyes to adapt to the dark shadowy interior.
If Sarah had already come and found the door locked, what would she do? Waiting by the door would be too obvious, so she’d probably keep going. But would she come back to check again? That’s what he’d do. He decided to give her five, maybe ten minutes. If she didn’t return by then, he would continue their plan by heading for the designated exit. Maybe, just maybe, his luck would turn and he’d make it out of the building undetected.
He noted the time and recalculated. He realized she may have already been back for a second look. If so, she could be driving past the pickup site right now. And if he wasn’t there either—hell, she could be anywhere now. So, why wait? Why not just get out of here now? He stood, ready to leave.
WHERE WAS THE little bitch? Buck Lewis stopped on the second-floor landing to listen but heard nothing. Fuck, his goddamned leg was killing him.
A metal door slammed. It sounded like it came from one level up. He charged up one flight, threw open the door, and limped into the empty garage. Fifteen feet away, directly across to the other wall, was the door to the hospital. Hurriedly he limped over, tried the knob. Locked. A slit for a security card reader was recessed into the jamb next to a small, red-glowing LED. Shit, the bitch used a key card to get in. Which meant he was fucked.
He keyed his mike. “Hen, Chick One. Be advised a target just entered the building from the parking garage. Target is a woman wearing scrubs. Nurse or doctor. She checked McCarthy’s car, so they’re connected.”
“Affirmative, Chick One.”
“Where are you now?”
“First floor, heading your direction. Where are you?”
“In the garage. Locked out.” He remembered the hall was long and without any exit until it T-boned into the main hall. She was trapped. “You have a visual on the target yet?”
“Negative, but we’re approaching the area now.”
“You need assistance?” As if he could do something.
“Negative.”
&nbs
p; Relieved, he answered, “I’ll come around.”
Lewis figured the only way back into the hospital was through the emergency room. But hell, Sikes and Hansen could easily handle the woman, so there was no need to hurry. Besides, with his leg hurting like a fucking train wreck, he was in no rush. He reached down to tenderly massage the throbbing bone and winced. Even slight pressure shot pain up his leg. Well, suck it up, cupcake, and start moving.
He started limping toward the vehicle entrance, thinking that once this operation was over, he’d put in for a few days sick leave. Maybe hitch a MATS flight down to Little Rock to bass fish with Pops. The cold water on his leg would be good therapy, right? Yeah, sounded like a good enough reason to request leave. Count it as sick leave instead of vacation. The good Lord knew he had enough accumulated. Use it or lose it.
He hobbled down the stairs to the second level, exited into the parking area, and started for the vehicle entrance. Up ahead, a group of fucking slant-eyes were jive-assing. No way the bitch got out through those motherfuckers. Hell no, they’d be boning her right there in the bushes.
Ignoring the pain—because any sign of pain showed weakness—he stopped limping and approached the group in a cool, determined stride, like this was nothing. The way to deal with these dickheads was to never show fear or weakness. Just like dealing with stray dogs. Act confident, they back away. Always. These douchebags were pussies, all show and no go.
One of the bangers yelled, “Yo, where you think you going, sucka?” as the others stopped to flash him their deadeye gangsta look.
Lewis slowed just outside the entrance, where he’d have to turn left to the sidewalk. “What’s it to you, motherfucker?” He had his weapon, silencer attached, wedged in the small of his back, hidden by his suit coat. He reached around, took hold of the grip.
“Yo, gotta pay to get out the garage, man. What you got for us?” The lead banger stepped toward him, hand out.
“This.” Lewis aimed the weapon at the leader’s forehead. “Move the fuck out the way, boy.”
Lewis didn’t see the tall, pockmarked banger taking a leak in the high rhododendrons bordering the building. Penis still dangling from his baggy cargo pants, the kid pulled a chrome-plated .38 from his waistband, put it to the back of Lewis’s skull, and pulled the trigger.
33
OUTPATIENT LABORATORY
HE WAS SO distracted thinking of ways to prove his innocence, McCarthy wasn’t paying attention to the door, so the click of the latch caught him off guard. He ducked behind the desk, raised his head far enough to peek over the top. A silhouette slipped through the partially open door and just as quickly shut it, then whispered, “Tom?”
Backlighting from the door window made it impossible to distinguish her features, but he recognized Sarah’s voice. He whispered, “Move away from the door.”
She came toward him, hands out, feeling for obstacles like a blind person. They met halfway around the desk. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged. He realized he was stroking the back of her head, and, embarrassed, let go. They stood facing each other for an awkward moment until he broke the silence with “Whew,” and stepped away from the light. “I was getting worried when you didn’t show up. I was just about to leave.”
She reached out and touched his arm, and said, “Hmm, that was nice. Maybe I should cause you to worry a little more often,” then slipped past him to the windows. “You were worried. Stupid me. I left my coat in the call room. My security swipe card was on it, so I had to walk all the way around the block to emergency to get back in. What a thrash.”
He stood beside her at the blinds, facing the window. “I thought maybe I’d gotten you in some kind of trouble.” He bent a slat down to peer at the street below. Parked cars lined the curb. Otherwise, the area appeared deserted.
“Sorry I caused you to worry.”
“Just glad you’re all right. What about the car?” He could see she didn’t have the folders with her.
She turned from the window to sit on the corner of a workstation desk. “I didn’t see a soul in the entire garage …”
Her tone triggered a twinge of paranoia in McCarthy. “But?”
She threw her head back, sighed, finger combed her hair. “Promise you won’t laugh at me?”
“Promise.”
She hugged herself. “I sort of weirded out down there. Got this nutsoid feeling like I was being watched. You know the bike area with the cyclone fencing?”
“I do.”
She raked her fingers through her hair again. “This is going to sound four plus paranoid, but the light over the space was out. It was in almost total darkness … gave me this creepy feeling like someone was hiding in there watching.”
With all the weirdness going on, he didn’t think her crazy at all. In fact, it made perfect sense if Sikes or the cops were watching his car.
“You don’t believe me, do you.”
He took hold of her shoulders. “Actually, I do.” Even to the point of wondering if Sikes might have attached a GPS tracking device to the car. Wouldn’t put it past him, not after what had happened. He told her about the missing DVDs.
She continued hugging herself, the news of the stolen DVDs triggering another shiver. “C’mon, let’s just get out of here. The longer we stay in this building, the creepier it feels.”
McCarthy checked the street below the window one final time, the same street where she would pick him up if he made it out the basement exit several floors below. The parked cars appeared empty, but you couldn’t really be 100 percent certain from this angle. Still, it felt reassuring to see no pedestrians or traffic.
“You really felt it, huh?” he asked her, thinking there must be more to the story. “What’d you do?”
“It was really intense.” She paused. “So, I sort of freaked and ran up the stairs. And, well, I’m positive I heard footsteps coming after me.”
The bad gut feeling from earlier returned. He hadn’t noticed it subside, but now that it was back. “Footsteps? You sure?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He glanced at his watch and thought again about the car being tampered with and decided it could be more than a tracking device. How about an explosive? Naw, that was too paranoid. Still.
“You’re right. We need to get out of here. Those things in the car can wait. I’ll get them another time.”
“Good.” She pushed off the table, heading for the door. “Same plan. I’ll pick you up, and then we go straight to Davidson’s office.”
He was at the door window, checking out the hall. “Right, but there’ll be one stop on the way. I need to stop at my place before we see Davidson.”
“Are you nuts? The police or Sikes will be all over your place.”
“Shhh. Keep your voice down.” He put a hand on her shoulder and considered how much of his plan to tell he. If caught, the less she knew, the less she could disclose to Sikes. “Davidson said the police are watching his office, so there’s no point going there. We’ll have to meet somewhere safe. After that, I need to get as much evidence as possible to support my side of the story.”
“But I thought Davidson was working on setting up a safe surrender.”
“He is, but that’s not going to happen. At least not immediately. Besides, once I’m in custody, there’s nothing I can do to help myself. Anything I can get my hands while I’m still free will help, and the only way that’s going happen is if I do it now.”
“I understand, but to go to your house when you know it’s being watched is crazy. I don’t care what you say, that’s nuts.” She stepped away from the door and folded her arms over her chest. “Sorry, but I won’t be part of that.”
That left him two options: go it alone or try to change her mind. Yeah, he could try escaping on his own, but she could be a tremendous help. No question, he’d be better off with than without her. “Sarah, trust me on this. I can get into my house from the back without being seen.”
“That may be, but what
if someone’s inside?”
“That’s a risk I have to take.”
“But what’s so important that you need to take the risk? We can get you a change of clothes somewhere else, if that’s a worry.”
He realized he had to tell her a little more of his plan. “I’m going to need another ID.”
She recoiled in shock. “Another ID?”
“If we’re going to Everett to verify Baker’s story, I can’t show up as Tom McCarthy. That’s a sure way of getting caught.”
Sarah studied him a moment. “You have another ID? I mean, like, another name?” She sounded incredulous.
“Yes.” He wished he hadn’t mentioned it because it brought up more questions than he felt comfortable answering.
She continued to study his face, almost as if she expected him to say he was joking. “Why?”
He took her arm and gently pulled her toward the door. “It’s a long story. One we don’t have time for now.”
“No it isn’t. It’s a short story if you make it short. And I’m not leaving this room without an explanation.”
Ultimatums. He hated them. But he also needed her help. Trying to persuade her would eat up more time that an abbreviated explanation. Right now, he needed to be out of the building with as much distance as possible from Sikes.
“When I was a grad student I spent time in Israel because there was a lab there doing similar work to my interests. Before I left, someone in the State Department contacted me to ask if I would keep my eyes open for things that might be of interest to them. So, I did.”
“In other words, you were a spy?”
The term made him uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t use that word for it. I just relayed information about things I happened to see. I wasn’t breaking into offices or going through file cabinets. Nothing like that.”
