Flash Point (26 page)

Shit
. For a second in the commotion, Jenna had forgotten that this case involved Grey, like the piece of gum she couldn't get off her shoe.

‘
Don't
turn her loose,' Jenna said, as much as it pained her. ‘Have her shadow Dodd. That'll at least keep her from scratching Porter's eyes out.'

‘You've got it,' Saleda said, turning to find the other team members.

Jenna took one last look back at the father and son before she left, then walked down the hall, staring at the red-streaked floor where the attackers had stalked their prey with blades dripping with the wounds of others before them.

The image of Scout, her hands on her knees as she dry-heaved in the bank popped into Jenna's mind again.

These people weren't born to be killers.

The shade of blue that she'd missed when it had flashed in earlier reappeared. Then, right away, the light khaki made another appearance.

‘Something's just not right,' Jenna mumbled to herself, and she headed for the stairs.

‘You can look in on her, but I'm afraid I have to put my foot down on this,' Dr Oscar said, leading Jenna down the corridor. ‘Dr Ramey, I know you're good at what you do. I in no way mean to insult you. But it wasn't long ago that she worked up here on this very floor, and while I didn't know her, I think of her as one of our own. I know she has a long road ahead, and I want to preserve what little security she's managed to tuck herself into feeling.'

Jenna bit back her argument. It was no use. Even though Black Shadow had left another note threatening more coming attacks, and even though Jenna knew there was more to the message inside the head of the nurse resting in the room before them, the sharp-nosed, graying psychiatrist beside her wasn't a profiler.

Jenna glanced in the square glass window into the room. A petite blonde woman, still wearing the same blue scrubs she had been when she'd come in to work that day, sat in the lone, floral-fabric chair in the room's farthest left corner, her knees bent up to her chest, feet planted in front of her rear end in the chair seat. One lily-white arm wrapped her legs, holding them to her, the other elbow propping her right arm on the armrest, her hand half-holding her head up. The other hand ran through her long, silky strands of hair the color of a pad of butter.

‘Has she said anything coherent at all? Maybe repeated a phrase or even just a word?' Jenna asked, not particularly hopeful.

Dr Oscar shook her head, frowned. ‘She's been like this ever since they found her folded up as tiny as she could get inside that cabinet. It's door was pulled shut and taped with the medical tape she'd had in her scrub top pocket. She'd been clutching a—'

‘A pair of medical scissors,' Jenna said, a faint blue color she couldn't place flashing in like it had every time the scissors were brought up. ‘I heard.'

‘So awful,' Dr Oscar said. ‘But, no, she hasn't said anything. She's muttered a bit, but only babble. Nothing of consequence that we've been able to discern.'

‘Dr Oscar! Room 8!' a yell came from down the hall.

Dr Oscar glanced at an orderly flagging her with big arms at the opposite end of the hall, then back at Jenna. ‘I'll be right back. Sorry!'

She took off running.

Jenna turned back to the window, stared in. Margeaux East continued to rock, her lips moving. She was babbling something even now.

Damn it! Jenna needed that message! More lives were at stake!

And yet …

Jenna glanced around. No one else in the hallway. Margeaux wasn't dangerous, and this wasn't an asylum by any means. The door wouldn't be locked …

The train of thought was jolted by her cell phone vibrating. Quickly and silently, she slipped her hand in her pocket and sent the call to voicemail, praying with everything in her it wasn't to do with Ayana.

It couldn't be. She has Charley, Victor, and Dad all watching. They've all been sending the right safe words on schedule.

And even if it is, this is the only chance. Now or never.

Jenna turned the knob.

Jenna thudded down the staircase toward the main hospital's entrance into the emergency department, heart thundering even harder than it had been when she'd snuck out of Margeaux East's room and into a cramped alcove to avoid Dr Oscar until the coast was clear for her to sneak out of the psych ward entirely. She'd finally given in to her phone's incessant vibrating, which turned out to be texts from Saleda – telling her to rush back to the ER ASAP, there was a new development – and Irv, clueing her in to what that development actually
was.

As she'd read his texts, the yellow from exam room six flashed in again, only this time, she realized it hadn't been just the khaki yellow of something seeming out of place she'd originally taken it for. The shade had been
so
similar, she hadn't seen it for the sand yellow it was:

BS TURNED OVER FOOTAGE TO MEDIA. MEDIA FOOTAGE ALTERED. COMPARISON TO RAW FOOTAGE FROM BS SITE SHOWS THERE WEREN'T JUST 32 BODIES. THERE WERE 33. BLACK SHADOW OFFED ONE OF THEIR OWN.

At that moment, she didn't care about Dr Oscar seeing her or even how ridiculously unethical it had been to sneak into Margeaux East's room to question her, let alone decide to pull out her voice recorder to capture the witness's babbling so she could try to make out what the woman was trying to say later.

Jenna had flown out of the alcove, her feet carrying her faster and faster toward the ER. The text hadn't said
where
the extra murder had happened, but it didn't have to. She knew where it was. It all made so much more sense. Why the Dad had died first. Why the son was closer to the door and then killed with a dagger. She hadn't seen past it because of the sword wounds, but they hadn't been the same swords.

The sand yellow represented the number two. A pair.

Jenna rounded the corner of the grisly inner portion of the emergency department from the main hospital entrance toward Hallway B – and room six – but all of the trains of thought and loaded questions she had for Saleda and the team died on her lips as she realized the latest guest had arrived to the party. It didn't take long for Jenna to gather that he wasn't happy about his literal lateness, either, and that it hadn't been intended, fashionably or otherwise. A few feet away, Saleda was drawn to full height, Porter beside her, posture aggressive as they faced the group of uniforms before them.

Jenna's gaze shifted to the arm of the officer Saleda was verbally sparring with, and the number of stars took Jenna aback. The man in the suit earlier had been a lackey sent from the Department of Homeland Security, but he had an Army general with him now.

Jenna strode forward, steeling herself to enter the mix.

‘Ah, Dr Ramey,' Saleda said, noticing her approaching, seeming grateful for the interruption. ‘Perfect timing.' She lanced tersely back toward the general, the police sergeant, and the man in the suit, then back to Jenna, holding her eyes fiercely as if trying to transmit something much more than simply the words she spoke. ‘These gentlemen and I have been discussing the developing situation. I was just saying to them that your expertise may prove instrumental in evaluating and assessing the risk profiles of certain tactical options on the table, given the profiles we've been able to piece together.' She turned back toward the men, nodding to the general. ‘General Theodore Quintrell, Military Advisor to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, this is Dr Jenna Ramey, Special Agent and acclaimed forensic psychiatrist.'

The sturdy, albeit top-heavy, officer stretched out a worn, calloused hand and smiled jovially, showing off the sizable gap between his two front teeth. ‘Please, do call me Ted. Formalities are for state dinners and impressing the wife.'

Jenna shook his hand, returning his smile, but only to put him at ease. The light orange that had flashed in at his words didn't jibe with the big 'ole teddy bear persona he seemed to want to impress upon her. The white hair and the double chin, rosy plump cheeks, and thick gut might've sold her that he was a military man softened in his old age if she'd met him on the street. But given the encounter she'd witnessed, the color told the real story. Funny, because she always thought of it as tiger orange, but the association actually reminded her of the orange of the black- and orange-striped Monarch butterfly. Or rather, its mimic, the Viceroy. It looked just like the Monarch – a trick to make predators afraid to eat it since Monarchs are poisonous. But Jenna's association with the color was the exact opposite of that concept. It was a deceptive charm, one that looked innocent and even pleasant on the outside but harbored something more poisonous underneath. ‘How about General Ted?'

He grinned. ‘That'll work fine.'

They released hands, and Saleda nodded to the other two men in turn. ‘And of course you've already met Sergeant Young and Mr Underwood.'

The two men nodded, as she did. ‘Nice to see you both. Please, tell me how I can be of assistance.'

‘Dr Ramey, I was just telling Agent Ovarez here that the Department of Homeland Security is increasingly worried, given the scale of these attacks, their randomness, and their brutality that with the promise of further violence from this group, our course should be swift and decisive. That's why we're working with local and state police to secure a perimeter, set up mobile command centers around and within a fifty-mile radius – thirty, if we can organize quickly enough – and through state police channels, are working with officials to issue an official shelter in place order to everyone living and working within that area. We plan to commence a door to door search by 1700 hours.'

Saleda's nostrils flared. ‘What I have just been discussing with the general, however, is how such an aggressive tactic may affect the dynamics of this particular terroristic organization, given their
specific
extreme beliefs regarding governmental interference. I was informing him that it's our team's opinion that such a bold move would likely further antagonize them to escalate their violence, especially when such a manhunt has little chance of success. Based on the very few pieces of evidence we would have to identify the culprits, that is.'

The general laughed heartily. ‘Miss Ovarez, forgive me, but I do believe finding one guy with a machete here, another with a samurai sword there would be fairly tale-telling.'

‘None of the UNSUBs has wielded a samurai sword in these attacks,' Porter mumbled, as, next to her, Jenna could feel the angry breaths rising and falling in Saleda's chest as she fought to allow Porter's interruption to suffice in lieu of correcting the general for calling her
Miss.

The general turned to him. ‘What did you say, son?'

Porter cleared his throat, straightened his posture. ‘Forgive my interruption, sir. I was just clarifying that none of the Unidentified Subjects has been known to use a samurai sword as a weapon. To date, that is.'

The general stepped to Porter's side, clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Well, then. Guess we'll have to leave them masked men with the samurai swords be, hadn't we son?' He laughed heartily.

The acid green of disgust flashed in. Regardless of this man's game or agenda, it didn't change the fact that they were standing in the middle of a hospital emergency room turned mortuary, and here he was, laughing like he'd just told the best one-liner on the golf course.

Let's cut the shit.

‘General Ted, I applaud your resolve and willingness to muster the manpower needed to put out such a strong show of effort to take back control of this situation, because the public is certainly frightened right now. No doubt their fears are on your mind, and your plan is a both a bold maneuver to capture the perpetrators of these attacks as well as an urgent display to those very scared citizens that steps are being taken to ensure their safety. But if I may speak candidly, sir, while such a strategy has its merits – it was clearly effective in Boston – based on my knowledge of this case and the profiling I have done on the UNSUBs as individuals and as a group, I must strongly encourage a different tactic be considered. Please, sir, don't waste valuable resources on trying to find the UNSUBs in a brute force, door-to-door manhunt. We can't risk antagonizing these bastards.
Especially
not when we have the new lead we do,' Jenna said, looking to Saleda as if to confirm she'd mentioned the information Irv had dropped on them.

‘Yes, Miss Ovarez told me about your technical analyst's theory that one of the terrorists killed another right over from where we're standing,' the general said, glancing in the direction of where the body of a fifty-something female lab technician was now covered in a white sheet in the middle of the hallway directly between Restroom A and Exam Room Six. ‘But our people have analyzed the video footage, and the area in question is so chaotic and blurred, the incident can hardly be seen at all in the whir of activity, much less be used to corroborate the wild theory of one assassin killing another, then removing the body from the crime scene. Never mind the fact that there
is
a body right where this incident supposedly occurred.'

That's the footage
your
people have seen.
But while Jenna knew they could fight, show the raw footage from the Black Shadow site, this guy and everything he stood for wouldn't care. He'd made up his mind. After all, he might be a general, but he had orders, too. Make his boss look good.

‘But, sir,' Saleda said through clenched teeth, trying to maintain a polite expression, ‘if they took that body it is because they didn't want it identified. That has to mean that the identity of the victim could link it to the other perpetrators. Put the priority on finding that missing body, general, and I assure you, you will expedite rounding up the culprits in ways manpower and riot gear never could.'