Deadly Errors (30 page)

He sensed something familiar.
What?
“What time is it?” It hit him—the odor of stale nicotine. He felt his heart accelerate in his chest, heard it on the monitor. The fear fed on itself, making him push up on one elbow for a closer look.

“A little after three.” The nurse picked up the clear plastic IV line connecting a half-full saline bag to a vein in the back of Tyler’s right hand.

He noticed a large syringe in the nurse’s other hand. “What is that?” The fear gripping his heart intensified.

“A little medicine to help you relax.”

Something familiar in the man’s voice jolted Tyler further toward panic. He yanked his arm away and sat up. “I don’t need anything to relax. I want up and out of here.” He started to reach for the lock to lower the bed rails.

“Sorry, no can do.” The nurse grabbed at the IV injection port.

It all clicked—the same voice from his apartment.

Tyler’s hand clamped onto the man’s wrist, twisting it violently, causing the syringe to tumble onto the bed sheet. Tyler’s free hand snatched it away before the man could react. Rolling onto his right side, Tyler held the syringe as a weapon. “Back off, asshole.”

The killer retreated a step but didn’t seem particularly threatened. He rolled his neck, loosening up his shoulders, and crouched.

Tyler noticed a lanyard hospital ID dangling from his neck. The picture looked nothing like the man. With his free hand, Tyler released the bed rail lock, letting it drop with a bang. He slid off the side of the bed. His free hand tore off the EKG leads. The man stepped closer, both muscular arms outstretched like a sumo wrestler. Tyler edged around the bed, keeping a good space between them.

Tyler yelled, “Don’t! I’ll inject you,” hoping someone would hear.

The man shot one quick nervous glance toward the glass door. Closed. The curtain pulled, effectively sealing off the outside from sound transmission. He smiled with apparent satisfaction. “Make my fucking day.”

Tyler ripped out the IV but couldn’t remove the intracath without setting down the syringe. Blood began dripping from the open port. The killer lunged for Tyler’s arm but he side stepped, causing him to miss hitting full force, but his shoulder crashed into Tyler’s chest, slamming him back against the wall, causing his grip to give. The syringe tumbled to the floor.

Tyler grabbed for it, but the other man was quicker and already bent over, hand outstretched. Instinctively, Tyler kicked, driving his knee directly into the man’s face, connecting hard, producing a sickening crunch of shattering bone and cartilage. Warm fluid spurted over his bare leg. Blood. But the killer dropped onto all fours, both hands groping frantically for the syringe. Tyler kicked it just before the man’s right hand reached it, sending it spinning across the floor. He broke free and lunged, his fingers reaching. Tyler scooped it up, spun around, rammed the needle through the thin scrub shirt cloth into the man’s back until it bent against the shoulder blade. He rammed the plunger home just as the man rolled right to get away but the needle was now hooked into his back and moved with him. Empty now, Tyler released the syringe, letting it hang from the man’s back.

Still crouching, the man swung. The roundhouse blow clipped Tyler on the chin, spilling him backward and into the wall. He scrambled back onto his feet, sprang for the door as the man also pushed up onto his feet. Tyler slid open the door only enough to slip into the hall, then slammed it closed and held it. He glanced around for help. Fifty feet away, outside the waiting room, stood the second killer. The man’s eyes widened in surprise but he said nothing, just started walking hurriedly toward Tyler.

T
YLER YELLED AT two nurses in the nursing station, “Help! Call security,” and started running.

The door crashed open behind him. Tyler turned his head. The killer was hanging onto the edge of the door, struggling to remain upright, his eyes no longer focusing.

Tyler sprinted bare footed to a side stairwell, slammed his left hip into the horizontal door release at full speed, flinging the door open, crashing it against the concrete wall. Using both hands to help slide down the tubular metal railing, he jumped down stairs three at a time, his feet stinging against the cold bare concrete. He never turned to see who was following him.

Tyler paused on the second floor landing for a quick listen. Rapid footsteps hammered the concrete stairs above, heading his way, echoing off the cinder block walls. He threw open the door and turned right at a dead run. The dimmed, deserted hallway stretched out in both directions. If he could round a corner before the other guy burst through the door, he might be able to gain time. His feet stung from slapping the bare concrete stairs and his lungs hurt from lack of oxygen and the lingering effect of the narcotics. At least now his soles were hitting vinyl.

Up ahead a man in gray housekeeping work clothes waltzed a large electric circular buffer side to side across the floor. The man didn’t seem to notice him at first, probably because of earphones connected to a white iPod hanging from his belt. Just then the man’s head jerked up, eyes wide. His mouth dropped open as Tyler shot past. At that moment the door banged open behind him. Tyler rounded the corner.

Twenty more feet and he reached the men’s surgery locker room. Frantically he punched in the four-digit security code. The lock snapped open. A moment later he was inside, gasping for air, leaning against the closed, locked door. His pursuer probability wouldn’t know the security code. And if he asked the housekeeper? Odds were 50-50 he didn’t know it either. But he couldn’t bank on those odds.

Tyler grabbed a set of scrubs off the metal rack and hurried to his locker. A moment later he threw open the narrow metal door and tore off the patient gown. On came the scrubs followed by his dedicated surgical shoes—a pair of Nike runners on the locker floor. Now dressed, he closed the door then tore off the tape and intracath still dripping blood from his vein. He pressed two fingers firmly over the puncture site and shook his head in an attempt to rid the last brain cobwebs.

He leaned his back against the cold locker door to steady himself and sucked deep a lungful of air while trying to collect his thoughts.

Call security? Probably not a good idea.
They’d most likely see him as nothing more than an escaped substance abuser gone berserk. Besides, what if the medical center security was cooperating with the killers? Call Ferguson? Okay, but only after finding a secure hiding place. Nancy? No. She didn’t believe the drugs-in-the-locker story anyway, so why would she ever believe this one? Especially after being hospitalized for an overdose. That left Jill.

He looked at the door through which he’d entered just minutes ago. So far no one had tried to come in here. Maybe the housekeeper said nothing. Maybe his pursuer gave up. Maybe the asshole was outside waiting. And maybe he was surrounded like Butch Cassidy in the final scene of the movie. No way to tell without opening the door and that was simply an option he wasn’t about to exercise.

Over in the hall that lead to surgery was a row of dictation booths. They contained phones. He dialed. When the operator answered, he said, “This is Doctor Leung. I need to be connected to Jill Richardson’s home phone, STAT.”

A moment later Jill’s sleep laden voice answered.

“It’s me, Tyler. I need help,” he blurted between breaths, his heart still hammering his sternum.

“What? What’s happened?”

In rapid fire sentences he explained the ordeal in ICU.

She asked, “Where are you now?”

Something stopped him from telling her exactly. Instead he said, “I’m still in the hospital. Can you help me?”

“You have to ask? Yes, what?”

His plan crystallized. “Drive up here as soon as you can. Park in the Emergency lot. Go to the cashier and claim my valuables—tell them the police want my wallet.”

“They’ll never give those to me.”

“Sure they will. You’re the head of Risk Management, you can pass off a credible enough story.”

She didn’t answer immediately. “You may be right … okay, where will I find you?”

“After you get my things, just go back to your car. I’ll meet you there.” He hung up.

The locker room had two exits: the way he’d entered and a second door to the main hall serving surgery. No reason the killer would know about the second exit unless, of course the housekeeper or security told him.
Then again
, he thought,
what were the odds he’s still in the building? By now his disguise should be blown. Unless, of course, security was helping him.
Now that he thought about it, more than likely it probably
wasn’t
the killer who’d pursued him … it was probably one of the nurses or someone from security. The killer would have had to help his buddy since he’d been injected with whatever the syringe contained.

This time of night the operating rooms would be dark and silent unless there was an emergency case under way. But with forty ORs available, chances were even if one were being used, he could make it to a back hall exit without being noticed. And if they did, he’d look completely in place. Just another surgeon wandering through the area.

He cracked the door displaying a large red sign, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT, and peered out into a graveyard-still hallway. He heard no sounds.

He slipped out into the hall, quietly closing the door behind him. The main hall formed a large rectangle circumventing a huge core of back-to-back operating rooms sharing a common dirty area and central supply. Over on the other side of the rectangle, a stairway led down to the first floor surgical waiting area. From there it would be a relatively easy matter to slip out through a side door and walk around the block to the parking lot. Piece of cake.

“Hey you. Hold it right there.”

Tyler glanced over his right shoulder. A large black man in a Maynard Medical Security uniform started jogging his way, each step accentuated by metallic jangles.

Tyler darted across the hall, shouldered through a heavy swinging door into an OR illuminated only by light angling through a small window in the single door to the central area. Unable to see well, he ran into the heavy stainless steel operating table, banging his left knee, shooting pain up his thigh and buckling his leg, making it impossible to run. Cursing silently, he dropped behind the anesthesia machine, frantically rubbing the knee cap.

The double doors cracked open as the security officer whispered, “I repeat, in pursuit of subject. Second floor, main surgery.” A pause. “Roger that.”

Shit!

A moment later a flashlight beam cut through the enlarging crack between the swinging doors. In a normal voice, the man asked, “That you in there, Doc Mathews?”

Tyler ran his fingertips down the back corners of the anesthesia machine until he could feel the small back wheels and their locks, then slowly rotated the flanges forward into the unlocked position.

One side of the door was completely open now, the flashlight beam exploring the room’s white tiled walls and interior. “Don’t worry, Doc, we’re your friends. We don’t mean you no harm. Come on out a there. We know you in there.” The beam cut across the top of the cart, passing overhead.

Tyler heard the metallic jingle of keys and peeked around the cart. The guard, silhouetted from the weak light filtering in from the hall, was moving slowly toward him now, flashlight still sweeping the room, but seemingly concerned now with the possibility of Tyler hiding behind the operating room table. “You can run, but you can’t hide, Doc. Believe me on that one.”

It dawned on Tyler. The guard was flanking the OR table. If he just stayed perfectly still, the guy might assume he’d gone out the other door and follow. He peeked around the cart edge to see where he was. The flashlight beam caught him directly into his eyes.

“Gotcha,” the guard yelled with obvious glee.

Tyler heard the jangle move his way, estimated the closing distance and forced himself to wait one more beat before throwing all his weight against the anesthesia machine, rolling it forwards as fast as he could until it came into thudding contact with something solid enough to stop it abruptly. He heard a groan and rushed past as the guard slumped to the floor, flew through the doorway and into the hall where he turned left, heading for an exit. Just as he approached the junction with the hall to the recovery room another security guard jogged around the corner in his direction. Without breaking stride, Tyler dropped his shoulder like a determined fullback and caught the surprised man in the chest, spinning him around and crashing him against the wall.

Tyler rounded the corner at the end of the hall and slammed his hip into the emergency exit crossbar, throwing the door open and triggering a deafening clanging fire alarm. But rather than fleeing down the stairs, he turned and sped across the hall into another blackened operating room. Gasping for breath, hand over his mouth to muffle the sound, he peeked through the small window in the swinging door at the limited view of the hall.

A moment later the guard he’d smashed against the wall flew through the open emergency door and began clambering down the stairs in pursuit. A few seconds later, first guard limped after him.

Cautiously, being careful to make no sounds, Tyler slipped into the utility room, cut across central supply, through another dark OR and back into the hall on the opposite side from where he entered the area. Here was the door surgeons used to drop down to the first floor waiting area. Moving as quickly as possible but without making any noise, he made it to the first floor, cut out into the lobby waiting room, ran across the main lobby to the front doors, then out into the driveway.