Critical (50 page)

"Damn!" Laurie shouted. She got another: seven-thirty a.m.

With four cases out of twenty-five enough for Laurie to fear for the worst in relation to Jack, she ran from her office and beat the elevator down button in hopes of hurrying its arrival. She checked her watch as she waited. It was just after eight. Jack's procedure was supposed to take a little more than an hour, so she might make it if she got a taxi immediately. Luckily, First Avenue was a good place to get a cab in the morning because of the hospitals and other services in the area. What Laurie had decided was that she wanted to be in the Angels Orthopedic Hospital's engineering spaces above the OR as soon as possible to make absolutely certain no one else did.

AS MUCH AS Angelo thought he was depressed the previous evening, he now felt worse. They'd been waiting for almost two hours after arriving at six-fifteen, and still no Laurie Montgomery. Since she and her boyfriend had arrived the previous morning from 30th Street, he'd positioned the van so as to be able to see as far up the street as possible. Every time he'd see a taxi approach, his heart would speed up in anticipation, only to be disappointed again and again.

"I don't think she's coming to work today," Angelo growled. "Kinda looks that way," Franco said while licking his finger to turn the page of his newspaper. "As if you give a shit!"

Franco lowered his paper and glared over at Angelo, who'd turned to look back up 30th Street. He felt like lashing out at his partner in crime but didn't. It wasn't worth the effort. Instead, he started to go back to the paper when he caught sight of a figure bursting out from the OCME and descending the front steps as if being chased.

"It's her!" Franco yelled.

Angelo's head spun around. He started to demand where when he caught sight of Laurie. She was standing at the curb, holding open a taxi door so a passenger could disembark.

"Holy shit!" Angelo yelled. He reached behind his seat for the ethylene, but Franco grabbed his arm.

"There's no time," Franco asserted. "We've got to follow her. Start the damn car!"

They watched while Laurie's hand anxiously waved for the obese woman passenger to hurry. Laurie even resorted to giving the woman one of her hands and attempting to help by pulling, as if the woman were stuck. As soon as the woman was barely out of the way, Laurie threw herself into the cab and pulled the door shut. A moment later, the cab was off with a screech of rubber.

"My God!" Angelo said. "The guy must be a NASCAR nut."

"Don't lose them," Franco cried, as he blindly reached for parts of the vehicle that could keep him from being thrown from his seat.

Angelo didn't need to be reminded about not losing Laurie, and he had the accelerator to the floor. The aged van responded admirably, and it shot forward with its own screech of complaint from its tires.

Briefly, Angelo glanced in the rearview mirror to see if Richie was on the ball. He was, and was not too far behind.

"Do you think she stayed the night in the morgue?" Angelo questioned, as he wove in and out of the traffic.

Franco didn't answer. He was too busy holding on and looking out for police cruisers. Luckily, he saw none. Soon Laurie's taxi and Angelo's van had to stop for a traffic light, and Franco had an opportunity to put on his seat belt.

WHEN LAURIE HAD finally managed to get into the taxi, she had hurriedly told the driver the name of the hospital, the address, and that she was a doctor. As a plea for speed, she'd said she was on a life-and-death emergency. The cab driver, who was a young individual, had taken the request to heart, and Laurie was pleased how quickly he took them up First Avenue. Although he'd not run any red lights as far as Laurie could tell, some of them had been debatably close and had required him to accelerate through the amber.

Unfortunately, going across town was different, and Laurie's feet began a nervous tap as they were forced to wait for a taxi to unload ahead of them at the corner of Park Avenue. Not only did the stop increase her anxiety of being too late, it also gave her a chance to add to her fears. If it were true that all the cases involved the seven-thirty OR time slot, then it was understandable why Wendell Anderson had never had an MRSA case; he didn't start his surgery until significantly later by choice, at least not before doing so, as a favor to Jack.

Laurie gritted her teeth. If she hadn't been so anxious, she could have gotten angry at Jack all over again about his headstrong insistence on having his surgery that day.

As they neared the destination, having just turned down Fifth Avenue, Laurie got out more than enough money and poked it through the Plexiglas divider. She had the door open before the cab came to a complete stop, and she was out on the pavement in a flash, slamming the taxi door behind her. She ran toward the entrance but then slowed as she neared the liveried doorman for fear of making him suspicious and delaying her. Seemingly unperturbed by Laurie's dash from the taxi, the man touched the brim of his hat as a kind of welcoming salute before giving the revolving door a push for her benefit.

Once inside, Laurie continued to force herself to walk at a nearly normal gait. She was conscious of her reception on Tuesday and did not want to call attention to herself, especially since there was a uniformed security man standing off to the side of the lobby.

Laurie reached the elevators and pushed the call button. Looking up to the floor indicator, she could see that one car was nearing the lobby.

Out of the corner of her eye, to her chagrin, Laurie glimpsed the security man push off the wall and walk in her direction. Self-consciously, she looked the other way. She could sense his presence at her side but slightly behind.

The elevator arrived. With relief Laurie boarded and in the process pushed the fourth-floor button. For a beat she faced into the car, fearing the man was about to accost her, but he didn't. Yet when she turned to face the elevator doors, he boarded and their eyes briefly met. They were the only two people in the elevator as the doors closed.

Laurie quickly shifted her gaze up to the cab's floor indicator above the doors and held her breath. Expecting to be questioned at any moment, the doors closed, the elevator rose but then immediately stopped.

To her surprise and relief, the security man exited on the second floor, apparently having pressed the button when Laurie had been purposefully keeping her eyes on the floor indicator. When the doors re-closed, Laurie breathed a sigh of relief.

The elevator then rose up to the fourth floor. As the doors opened, Laurie dashed out and ran headlong down the aseptically white corridor. Coming up to the engine room door, she hesitated, praying she was wrong and that her suspicions and fears were a product of an overly active imagination. Looking at her watch, she saw it was eight-forty; the timing would be correct.

Grasping the doorknob and with a bit of effort, Laurie pushed into the engineering room and was immediately enveloped in the throaty, deep hum of the machinery in the heavily insulated, high-ceilinged room.

The heavy door made a loud mechanical click that caught the attention of a surgically masked, hooded, and gowned figure who straightened up from where he had been otherwise hidden among the ducting. In one hand he held a wrench, hardly a surgical instrument, in the other a stoppered Erlenmeyer flask.

In took only a second for Laurie to believe her worst fears were confirmed. Shouting "No!" at the top of her lungs, she raced toward the man, who took a few steps back as if he were going to flee but then changed his mind and stood his ground. Laurie ran into him at full speed with her hands clawing at his mask and ripping it away. Instantly, she recognized who it was. It was Walter Osgood.

The unexpected contact forced Walter to stagger back. As he desperately tried to grasp something to keep him on his feet, he dropped both the wrench and the flask. The wrench clattered safely to the floor but the flask smashed into a dozen shards. The contained white powder was ignominiously dumped onto the floor.

Laurie screamed like a banshee and pounded Walter, who tried to protect himself by raising his crossed arms and briefly allowing Laurie to hit against them. She even got an arm through to his face, striking it as hard as she could, which jolted him out of his inaction. With a surge of defensive anger, he balled his hand into a fist and swung it wide in a roundhouse blow, catching Laurie above the ear. Laurie went down hard. Still, she shook herself and then tried to get up but felt her head yanked painfully to the side. Walter had roughly grabbed a handful of her hair and was dragging her. With Walter twice her size and weight, it was difficult for Laurie to resist, but she reached up and hit and then scratched his forearms. Walter's reaction was to strike her again, almost as hard, with his left hand.

She tried to break the hold he had on her hair as he pulled her over to a door. Opening it with his left hand, he dragged her inside. She tried to kick his legs, but he released the grip he had on her hair and hit her again on the side of her head with his fist. As she flopped back supine, he dashed back out through the door. Although dizzy, Laurie regained her feet and lunged for the doorknob only to feel and hear it make a loud mechanical click. She was locked in.

Walter gingerly touched the side of his face. Pulling his fingers away, he saw a small amount of blood. Quickly, he retrieved his N95 mask and secured it to his face, despite the fact that one of its ties had been snapped apart when Laurie had torn it off. Next, he ran to a large, deep sink, where he found a towel. Wetting it, he rushed back to the smashed flask and, being careful not to cause even the slightest air disturbance, laid the wet towel over the white powder.

Ignoring Laurie's muffled yells as she pounded on the storeroom's door, Walter pulled out his cell phone. He was pleased there was a signal. Quickly, he dialed the emergency number in Washington. Once again, it had to ring a number of times. As he waited, he winced at the new crashing sounds coming from the storeroom. Laurie was apparently throwing large metal containers against the door, which was more worrisome than her previous yelling or pounding against the door with her fists. Walter was concerned someone might hear the commotion, despite the extensive sound insulation with which the room had been equipped. There was no doubt in Walter's mind that Dr. Montgomery had to be removed, and she had to be removed quickly.

Finally, the phone was answered. Walter had no patience with the heretofore cloak-and-dagger routine. When the man started to ask whether Walter was on a cell phone, Walter yelled that he didn't have time for such intrigue. "I've got Dr. Laurie Montgomery locked in a storeroom in the OR HVAC room," he yelled. "Should I let you listen to her yelling and screaming and pounding on the walls? This whole mess is over if she's not dealt with. Do you understand what I'm saying? Whoever your best negotiator, as you called him, is, he's doing a hell of a lousy job. She burst in here and ruined my sample, so today's attempt isn't going to happen. I warned you about this two days ago."

"You say Miss Montgomery is locked in a closet?"

"I said a storeroom," Walter yelled.

"What floor?"

"Fourth floor. It's left down the corridor from the elevator. The door plaque says
Engineering.
"

"Don't let anyone in!"

Walter laughed sarcastically "You don't understand. If one of the engineers needs to come up here for any reason, I couldn't stop them. How often they do come, I have no idea."

"I'll have someone there momentarily."

This time it was Walter who hung up first. For a moment he just stood there, furious at what he had been dragged into and everything that was happening, all because the company's health insurance wouldn't pay for his boy's lymphoma treatment.

Another crash brought Walter abruptly back to the present. He walked over to the storeroom door, pounded it himself, and told Laurie to shut up and that he'd let her out when she'd calmed down.

"Let me out now," Laurie yelled back.

"I've called security. They are on their way" Walter yelled, but his comment only resulted in another horrendous crash from within the storeroom. Giving up, he set his mind to clean up the airborne infection powder.

ADAM WAS PARKED on the playground side of the street just opposite Laurie Montgomery's house. He'd gotten there slightly earlier than he'd planned to give himself an extra cushion of time, but something had obviously gone awry. Although a few people had exited the building, neither Laurie nor her boyfriend had shown their faces.

Just when Adam was about to admit he'd have to return in the morning, his phone buzzed against his leg. It was one of his handlers in Washington.

"Where are you?" the man demanded.

"One hundred sixth Street on the Upper West Side."

"Get over to the Angels Orthopedic Hospital. The target is locked in a closet in a fourth-floor engineering space. An operative of ours is there. His name is Walter Osgood. Miss Montgomery must be extracted ASAP and then dealt with accordingly It should be a challenge, but we trust you are up to it."

Adam quickly hung up and started his vehicle. He then switched on the Beethoven and turned up the volume.

IN THE DARKNESS, Laurie was becoming desperate. She'd always been somewhat claustrophobic, and being locked in the way she was had awakened her childhood fears. The only sliver of light was found beneath the stout door, and she'd been unable to locate a light switch. After the first few minutes of pounding on the door and yelling in hopes of being heard by someone other than Walter Osgood, she'd groped about in the utter blackness. The storeroom was about ten by twenty feet, with shelving on both sides. It was in the very back that she'd found the sizable metal containers whose tops were secured like paint cans. She had no idea what they contained and thought they may well have been paint. By rolling one forward, she'd used it to heave repeatedly against the door. It had had no perceivable effect despite its weight, and she had to be careful in the darkness that it didn't bounce off the door and injure her.