Critical Condition (32 page)

“Don’t take any unnecessary chances,” Gina reminded her, seemingly following Amanda’s thoughts. “Remember, Jerry only has one shot.”

Amanda had offered to split the ammo she had left, but they decided all Jerry needed was one shot to get the South African’s attention. Better that Amanda keep the rest since she might actually hit what she was aiming at.

“Be careful,” Jerry told Gina. Despite the fact that he had whispered the two words, he’d made them sound loud and urgent. “Maybe I should—”

“No.” Gina said. “We stick to the plan. And don’t forget, stay inside. I can’t risk anything happening to you if things go wrong.”

Amanda tugged at Jerry’s arm. She wanted to get this over with before something could go wrong, like everything else that had gone wrong today.

LYDIA AND TREY CROSSED THROUGH THE AMBULANCE bay. The ER doors were locked—the first time Lydia had ever seen that happen. But a short distance away, they saw a tarp billowing through a broken window.

“What the hell?” Lydia held the tarp to one side while Trey shone his light inside. He’d grabbed a satchel of tools from the Excursion and had it slung over one shoulder, the machine gun over the other.

“Told you, someone drove a car through the waiting room. But the door to triage is open; we can get through there.”

He helped her climb through the debris until they reached the hallway on the other side of the triage desk.

“Sure you don’t want to come with?” he asked when they arrived at the stairwell door. “I’ll let you carry my machine gun.” It would have been funnier if they both hadn’t known that the only reason he’d taken the machine gun was because it would make for a better diversion if he needed to use it.

“Just be careful.” Lydia stood on her tiptoes to give Trey a quick kiss. Wished it were longer, wished they had all the time in the world.

“Me, I’m just playing with a little electricity—you’re the one who’d better be careful.”

She walked away before she could think twice about it. The ER was a shambles: the nurses’ station destroyed, snowdrifts swirling around her feet, wind whistling down the long, deserted corridors. It was like being in a spook house on Halloween. Except the spooks she was looking for carried guns.

Keeping her gun hand free, she held her flashlight between the fingers left exposed by her cast. It meant she had to move her entire arm to aim the light, and every movement brought a new wave of pain from her arm, but it was better than holding the light in her teeth.

She’d made it almost to the intersection with the corridor leading to the auditorium when she heard a small scraping sound. Whirling, Lydia spun the light high and low, her gun following its aim.

“I know that smell.” The man’s voice came from behind a laundry hamper. “You’re not one of them.”

“Come out,” she ordered, not lowering her guard.

The man leaned on the hamper to climb to his feet, and she saw that one of his ankles was swathed in a brace. “You’re not from the zoo. What were you doing with my penguins?”

 

 

NORA HAD NO CHOICE. IT WAS THE PRICE SHE PAID for coloring outside the lines, but if it gave everyone else time to escape, it was worth it. And with Jerry, Gina, and Amanda running loose around Angels, she still had hope. They had all pulled together before for tough saves in the ER—“minor miracles,” Amanda called them—so why not tonight?

Nora might have even believed her inner pep rally if the South African hadn’t yanked her forward and tugged her wrists into plastic riot cuffs that pinched so hard she thought they were about to slice through her skin.

“Let’s go,” he said, pushing her in front of him toward the door.

“Hold it!” Jerry’s voice called from the second doorway behind them.

The South African wheeled, pulling Nora close as a shield. The action momentarily blocked his access to his machine gun, though, so he drew his pistol instead.

Jerry stood, silhouetted in the scattered lights from the stage and aisle, aiming a gun at the South African, needing both hands to keep it steady. Nora’s stomach sank into her toes—Jerry’s gun had no bullets; it was more a security blanket than a weapon.

Then he fired off a shot. She jerked in surprise.

“Drop your weapon!” another voice—could that be Amanda?—came from behind them.

The South African tried to whirl around again, aiming to put his back to the wall so that he could face both adversaries—and keeping Nora in the crossfire as he did.

Nora wasn’t about to let that happen. As he pivoted his weight, she elbowed him in the groin with the combined force of both her arms and threw her weight forward.

He released her, grabbing his machine gun. Shots rang out above her. Then a body crumpled beside her.

The South African. His machine gun had fallen to one side. Nora grabbed the pistol from his limp hand. He wasn’t dead, just writhing in pain from twin wounds in his thighs and another in his belly.

“Jerry, you did that?” she asked, amazed that Jerry’s coordination had allowed him to make such precision shots.

He shook his head.

“It was me,” Amanda said, shoving a pistol into the sash of her ball gown, which now looked like someone had sent it through a paper shredder. “Where’s Lucas?”

“Where’s Harris?” Jerry asked, looking around.

“He left right before you came in. Went to get Tillman.”

Jerry did a stutter step, and then his eyes went wide at her words and he raced back out again.

 

 

GINA COULDN’T BELIEVE HER BAD LUCK—ALL THEIR planning and Harris had waltzed out of the auditorium while Jerry was checking around the corner for guards. She’d left her position to tell Jerry, but he’d been too far away.

So instead she grabbed the bare essentials and tracked Harris. It wasn’t hard; he had a flashlight and wasn’t looking over his shoulder or trying to hide. Guys like him never did—like her dad, always assuming he could get away with anything, never thinking to cover it up. If Moses Freeman did something and you didn’t like it, tough luck because he wasn’t going to back down.

Harris crossed the lobby to the information desk, usually staffed by volunteers. There was a small closet behind it, just large enough for a few coats and some office supplies.

He pushed through the swinging half-door into the area behind the desk. Gina took the opportunity to empty a liter bottle of saline, creating a puddle a few feet in front of the swinging door. She made no noise until the very end when the bottle made one tiny gurgle.

Harris’s light swept over the air above her. Gina froze, flattening herself against the slate floor. Then he went back to jangling the closet door—obviously trying to unlock it, cursing as he went through keys on a ring.

She placed an electrode pad on each side of the half-door. She only had ten feet of wire to work with, but she inched her way backward until she’d used it all, hoping the shadows would hide most of her work.

When she looked back she couldn’t see anything except a black void—hopefully Harris wouldn’t shine his flashlight down at the floor. The LifePaks were already charged and ready to go—all she’d need to do was hit a button on each. When the time was right.

Harris had the door open and was hauling a man from the closet. As the flashlight angled over him, she saw it was Tillman—gagged with a length of gauze and his hands bound in front of him. His toupee hung by a few strands, looking like he’d grown a second head—one bald and the other an orangutan pelt with a cheap bleach job.

Damn, that changed everything. She tried to work the physics problem in her mind, but there were too many variables. She had no choice but to play it out. The fate of the entire hospital rested on it.

Harris pushed Tillman through the swinging half-door. The CEO went sprawling, stumbling into the wall, then sliding down it to sit on the floor, looking stunned.

Good, that got him out of the way. Hopefully far enough. She had to stop Harris before he grabbed Tillman again. Which hadn’t been part of her plan—of course, it wasn’t like anything she planned seemed to go right. What was Lydia always telling her was the key to life in the ER? Improvisation—Gina had had more than her fill of it today.

She stood and turned the otoscope on. “Hold it, Harris.”

His light hit her square in the face. She squinted but could still see enough to play her part. “You. The secretary. Or actually—Dr. Freeman, I presume?”

Gina raised her gun. “Drop the radio and your gun.”

He regarded her. Then laughed. “Tillman told me all about you, Dr. Regina Freeman. Poor little rich girl working here, hoping to win Mommy and Daddy’s approval. You hid like a coward when your boyfriend was shot. You’re not going to shoot me.”

Every fiber, every nerve and cell in her body screamed for her to run and hide, but Gina held her ground, the hand holding the gun shaking uncontrollably. No need to pretend to be scared, she was terrified.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of.” Even more frightening—
she
had no idea what she was capable of.

“Put the gun down.” He took another step forward. One foot in the saline puddle. Just one more step . . .

The auditorium doors crashed open. Jerry ran out, coming from Gina’s right side. “Drop it!”

He held a gun. His Beretta. His
empty
Beretta.

Damn it, he was going to ruin everything and get himself killed in the process. “Get out of here, Jerry!” Gina shouted.

Harris stepped sideways, into the center of the saline, as he turned to cover them both. Then he laughed and resolutely turned his back to Jerry and aimed at Gina. “Put the gun down, Detective Boyle. Unless you want to watch your girlfriend die.”

Jerry took another step into the lobby, coming perilously close to the puddle.

“Stop, Jerry. Go. Now!”

Harris laughed. “There’s nowhere for him to go. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.”

Jerry, confused, stared at Gina. She couldn’t try to warn him, not while Harris was watching. To her relief, he lowered his gun and took a step backward. Hopefully far enough—not like Gina had ever tried this particular experiment before.

“Drop the gun, Gina,” Harris said.

She held the gun out in front of her, moving in slow motion as she squatted and placed it on the floor, skidding it away from them both. As Harris’s gaze flicked to follow the movement of the gun, she pressed the buttons on both LifePaks hidden at her feet, releasing all the current at once.

Sparks flew from the defibrillator pads. Harris screamed and jerked, his body jackknifing into a bizarre salute. Smoke billowed from his feet and hands. His gun careened across the floor into the dark. Then he fell forward, landing with a thud in the saline.

The stench of ozone, burned flesh, and blood filled the air, mingling with the crackling noises coming from the puddle.

“Don’t move,” Gina called out to Jerry, trying to find him with the otoscope, which now flickered as weakly as a firefly. “Don’t go near the water—it will still be charged.”

Jerry had backed up against the wall. “Is he dead?” “No way of checking until the current dissipates. What were you thinking, waving that gun around? You knew you had no bullets.”

Jerry shook his head as if bullets were meaningless. “You okay?”

Gina skirted around the puddle and collapsed in his arms.

Lydia came sprinting around the corner from the ER, holding an industrial-sized flashlight, feathers flying from one arm, her body caked with snow, and smelling, Gina wrinkled her nose, like dead fish.

“Gina, Jerry, are you okay?” Lydia shone her light around, taking in Harris’s body. “I take it that’s one of the bad guys? Any idea how many more there are?” She held her gun at the ready.

“Amanda and Nora are in the auditorium with the other hostages.”

“South African’s down,” Jerry put in.

“I think that’s everyone,” Gina said. “Unless there are still men searching upstairs.”

“The police will be here soon; they can take care of them.” Lydia nodded to Harris. “You sure he’s beyond helping?”

“If you’re gonna help anyone, help Lucas,” Amanda said, hauling Lucas into the circle of light. She had her gun in her free hand, slipping it into the sash of her dress when she saw only friendlies waiting for her. Lucas had blood dripping from his arm and was leaning heavily against her. “He’s hurt.”

“What happened?” Lydia asked as she rushed to help.

“I think—I think I was shot,” Lucas said in a stunned voice. “I didn’t feel anything—not until I looked down and saw all the blood.” His voice trailed off and he slumped against Amanda who propped him up against the auditorium door, scattered light streaming through it.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have moved him. He doesn’t do well with blood. Keeps fainting.” Amanda told them, glaring at them as if daring them to scoff. She and Lydia helped Lucas down to the floor, and his eyes fluttered open once more. “He was a hero, saved a lot of people.”

Lydia made quick work of stripping Lucas’s lab coat off and tearing his shirtsleeve to assess the damage. “Hate to say it, Lucas, but it’s only a flesh wound.”

“Really?” He seemed embarrassed. “Hurts like hell.”

“You’ll be fine,” Amanda said. “I’ll take good care of you.” She handed Lydia a radio. “I called upstairs. No one has heard or seen any bad guys since they came through looking for you, so I think the coast is clear.”

Gina turned to look inside the auditorium. Nora was rousing people and herding them toward the doors, despite the fact that hanging from her wrists were two cut plastic handcuffs.

“All right, everyone, let’s get to work,” Gina said to the hospital workers streaming through the doors. “We need to unblock the exits to the floors upstairs, check on all the patient wards, triage anyone who needs immediate attention.”