Painless (26 page)

Chapter 56

Dana sped out of the train station like she knew where she was going, and then turned onto an eerily quiet Union Avenue. When it appeared they were out of immediate danger, she twisted her head toward the backseat and shrieked, “Is she okay?”

Billy had no good answer. He tore off Carolyn’s sweater and used it as a towel to sop up the red liquid until he found flesh. But the second he removed the towel, she was covered in blood again. It felt hopeless, like the fable about the child trying to put fingers in the dam to stop the flood. The blood kept coming. He needed to find the wound on her little body, but she couldn’t point him toward the pain. He kept up the process. Wipe—red—wipe—red. Panic set in.

But then he found the cool quarterback, and the world slowed down. After a few more desperate wipes, he located the wound in her right armpit. By the looks of things, the bullet exited out the back of her shoulder. No major organs in the armpit, he thought. He hoped. Although every gunshot is just an inch away from a “good night” organ. Everything was so close, especially on such a little girl. He thought of the spine, and made her move all her extremities. So far so good.

But the bleeding continued. He wrapped her sweater under the armpit and then around her shoulder, tourniquet style. He then took her hockey jersey out of her backpack and put it on her. He wanted her to be as warm as possible, to avoid her going into shock.

“How you doing, kiddo?” he asked.

“I’m a little tired.”

“You lost a lot of blood, like the Dracula joke. It makes you tired.”

“Does that mean I can’t go to school anymore?”

“No, you are going back to school real soon.”

“I’m gonna haff some good stories to tell.”

He hoped.

She tried to sit up. “Whoa…dizzy.”

“Just put your head down for a few minutes and you’ll be fine.”

He hoped.

“We have to get her to a hospital,” Dana exclaimed, continuing to speed into the dark night.

“We can’t take her to a hospital. Those people can get to her anywhere.”

Dana was momentarily silent, and Billy didn’t like the vibe he got. He examined her closely. She looked like Dana: sweater, boots, and flowing hair, right off the cover of some women’s magazine hyping “hot new fall fashions!” She certainly smelled like Dana—expensive and European. But there was something different about her. It was her stillness. From the first time he laid eyes on her she was in constant motion. He didn’t know what to make of it.

“Maybe we can take her to one of those doctors who work for the mafia or drug dealers, who do it under the table,” she said.

“Sure, let’s go find a Yellow Pages and look up Drug Dealer Doctors.”

She scowled at his sarcasm and coldness filled the car. “I was just thinking out loud. Flesh wound or not, she’s lost a lot of blood, and could go into shock. Not to mention infection or internal damage.”

“Watching
Grey’s Anatomy
doesn’t make you a doctor.”

“We have to get her to a hospital!”

“It’s against my better judgment.”

“Better judgment than what? You almost got her killed back there!”

 She sounded more like Beth than Dana.

“Can I go to a children’s hospital and not a regular hospital?” Carolyn chimed in, but her tone was weakening.

But then she seemed to find a second wind. With unexpected vigor, she struggled to reach her healthy arm around to her back. She eventually maneuvered her hand under the hockey jersey. Billy wasn’t sure what she was doing, but something was bothering her. Strange, since she was normally immune to most stimuli.

“Are you okay?” Billy asked.

“I can’t reach.”

Then he asked a stupid question. “Does it hurt? Your back?”

“No, silly, it itches.”

“You can feel itches?” he asked, surprised.

“Weren’t you listening to Dr. Jordan?”

“I guess not.”

“I can feel tickles too, just not my boo-boos.”

He gave her a light tickle on her belly, hoping to cut the tension. She smiled slightly. She seemed to be stabilizing.

Billy helped her lift the baggy jersey over her head. He examined the “sweater bandage” wrapped around her shoulder and underarm area. It was splotched with blood, but not drenched. The bleeding had subsided.

Billy then turned her around and found the spot she couldn’t reach. He noticed a dark object just under the surface of her skin.

“What is it?” Dana asked impatiently from the front seat.

He examined closer. “I don’t know. It looks like it might be a big tick.”

Carolyn freaked. “We better get it out before I get the lime!”

“Hold still,” he steadied her, while Dana handed him a nail file from her handbag. He began to dig into the flesh of her back. “This might hur…uh…forget it.”

After a minute or so, he was able to dig the object out of her back. It wasn’t a tick. It was a roundish metallic object about the size of a penny. It had a logo on it; two letter Ss protruding vertically like two snakes. He remembered it from the ID badges at the hospital.

“What is it?” Dana asked again.

Billy wasn’t sure, but he had an idea. He was a writer, not one of those private detectives who always can find bugs under a phone or in the walls. But for some odd reason he was sure it was a tracking device.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked Carolyn, holding it in front of her face.

She looked at it. “No.”

“Do you know where you got it?”

“Yes.”

The answer surprised him. As did the next one.

“Dr. Jordan put it in my back.”

“Dr. Jordan? Did he say why he put it in your back?”

She shook her head no, before succumbing again to dizziness.

Billy’s mind exploded, the puzzle pieces falling into place. Operation Anesthesia had used the device to track them to the train station in Schenectady. They didn’t follow Dana, nor were they on his train. It was also why they let them go. Why make a big scene when they can just pick them up at the next stop?

And it all went back to Jordan. Both men—the security guy posing as a FBI agent and Osama Banana—worked for him. And he’s the one who put the tracking device in her back. Carolyn was right, dragons were at the plantation. Billy now understood that the key to stopping Operation Anesthesia, and getting Chuck and Beth back, was no longer André Rose. It was Dr. Samuel Jordan.

Billy laid out his theory to Dana, but she remained cold and unimpressed. “And you are some kind of James Bond?” she said, then abruptly pulled over to the side of the road and shut off the engine, “Get out of the car—I need to talk to you.”

They stepped out. Dana brought her large handbag with her, which confused him.

“What’s your problem?” Billy began, annoyed.

“My problem?”

“We just might have gotten the break we need and all you’re giving me is attitude.”

“Chuck and Beth are missing.”

“You told me. Do you know what happened?”

“You tell me.”

Something was wrong. This wasn’t Dana before him.

“How would I know what happened? We were running for our life, if you remember. In Montreal!”

“The guy who was chasing you came by my office yesterday. Said his name was Hasenfus. There is no record of a Hasenfus working at the FBI.”

“That’s because he was full of shit. I saw him and the Osama Bin Laden-looking guy at Jordan’s plantation in Virginia. Jordan has something to do with this. Why else would he be putting devices in her back? I think they’re all in on it—they all work for Operation Anesthesia!”

“He said
you
were the one who worked for Operation Anesthesia.”

Billy’s face twisted in convulsions. He wasn’t expecting that one.

“He tried to convince me you were working with Calvin Rose. Told me about your violent past and showed me those photos of Kelly after you used her face as a punching bag. It’s one thing to hear someone talking about it on the radio, it’s another to see it firsthand. He said you were going to deliver Carolyn to Operation Anesthesia.”

“And you believe that bullshit?”

Dana pulled a gun from her handbag and pointed it at him. “No, I don’t think you planned to give Carolyn to Operation Anesthesia, or anyone else. You want Carolyn for yourself.”

Surprise filled his face, the pop out of the cake naked kind. “What are you talking about? I’m trying to save Carolyn!”

“Or save yourself. I know the whole ugly truth from that night in D.C. I know why you did what you did. I know
both
reasons.”

He stood stunned. The past had risen from the dead like a character in a horror flick.

Dana began to cry. “Part of me understands your pain. I can’t even imagine what you went through. But you can’t use Carolyn to fill the hole in your heart.”

He attempted to step toward her. “That’s crazy, Dana.”

The gun trembled in her hand. But her steely eyes left no doubt she would use it if need be. “Give me your train tickets and my ATM card.”

He patted his black jeans and shrugged. “I put them in Carolyn’s backpack in the car.”

Not believing him, she patted him down like she was NYPD, finding only empty pockets. She then wiped tears from her eyes. “I guess this is goodbye, Billy.”

He tried to say something, but his mouth felt paralyzed.

She ran to the car and sped away.

Carolyn looked out the back window and gave an unsure wave.

He stood stunned. But then a thought hit him over the head like a sledgehammer.

“No, Dana, come back!” he yelled, but the car was too far gone.

He just remembered that he had put the tracking device in Carolyn’s backpack.

Chapter 57

Billy found a taxi at a gas station about a half a mile up the street. Luckily, Dana didn’t check his sock, where he’d hidden what was left of the money he took out of the ATM at Les Princesses. He was able to bribe the off-duty driver into giving him a lift.

But to where?

Then it hit him. Dana asked for his train tickets. Was she was going to jump it at the next station? The thinking being, the bad guys (him included) would be looking for a BMW. But because of the tracking device, they weren’t. He had to get to her.

“What’s the nearest Amtrak stop?” he asked the driver.

“Albany/Rensselaer.”

“How far is it?”

“Twenty miles or so.”

“Go there. And step on it!”

The man looked for a bug to squash.

“No, go really fast.”

The driver drove onto I-890, before merging onto the New York State Thruway. They hit tolls, frustrating Billy.

The driver was affable and talkative. He introduced himself as Martin—pronounced Mar-tan—and explained away his accent as him being a French Canadian from Quebec who had recently moved to the Albany area. He appeared to be going for the
Planet of the Apes
look. Unruly dark hair with a heavy beard. The hair on the back of his neck was almost as thick as the hair on Billy’s head.

They crossed the Hudson River using the Henrick Street Bridge, arriving in the town of Rensselaer. The facility was a modern, multi-level station of eighty thousand square feet that rested just over the bridge. The polar opposite of the small, dated station in Schenectady.

He had Martin drop him at the front entrance of the large, brick building and offered the rest of his money to stay and wait. Billy dashed toward the glass entrance, but before he reached the station, something caught his eye. It was Dana’s BMW parked up on the curb about twenty feet from them. Abandoned. Police were looking at it, but were they real police? The car evoked mixed emotions. At least he now knew her whereabouts. But was he too late?

He sprinted into a spacious open area, travelers scampering past him in all directions. The station was filled with shops, cafés, and even a post office. It was more like an upscale mall than a typical train station. Billy hurried to an information booth. It was surrounded by photos of the ribbon cutting grand opening, filled with grandstanding New York politicians mugging for the photos. The woman behind the glass partition sent him to a set of modern display monitors that provided up-to-the-minute updates on arrivals and departures.

Billy was overwhelmed by the number of train lines. Martin had warned him that Albany/Rensselaer was the hub for the region, a rare area where you could actually travel by train in all four directions. A quarter of a million travelers came through the station each year, making it easy to get lost. A good choice by Dana, regardless whether it was by design or shear luck.

He found the Adirondack line for Amtrak.
Delayed
, it read, due to mechanical issues. By mechanical, he was hoping they didn’t mean suspicious shooting. The screen then changed right before his eyes.
Arrived
. His heart plummeted. He abruptly turned and headed for the train platform.

Two escalators were running to the upper platform, separated by steep stairs in the middle. He ran up the stairs. His lungs burned and his legs molded into jelly. He remembered running the metal bleachers at his high school with Coach yelling, “Come on, Harper—no pain, no gain!”

But when he reached visual distance of the train platform, his plummeting heart crashed completely to the ground. He saw the blistered Hasenfus, along with Osama Banana and a couple other henchmen getting on the train. They strategically got into different train cars, spreading out like a noose they were going to tie around Carolyn and Dana’s necks. Billy ran faster.

But just as he arrived at the platform, the train pulled away, vanishing from sight.

Security intercepted him. Not a rent-a-cop—security was much more serious at train stations post London bombings. These guys were military. In Billy’s twisting mind of paranoia, he wondered if they were connected to the big plot.

“Stop that train!” he yelled like a mad man.

“Do you have a ticket, sir?” asked one of the fatigue-wearing soldiers.

“Umm…no…please stop the train,” he pleaded.

“Sorry, sir, you are too late. Please consult the ticket office about the next train.”

He walked lifelessly to the platform and fell to his knees. Then something strange occurred—a tear plopped to his cheek. He wasn’t sure what it was at first—it had been so long since he last cried. The ice must thaw before turning to liquid form. “Oh my God—no!” he cried out.

That was when he felt a tap on the shoulder. He instinctively looked.

The toothless grin of Carolyn Whitcomb was staring back at him. “Don’t cry, Billy, the sun will come out tomorrow.”

Confused, he swiveled his neck and saw Dana.

“I found the chip in her backpack when I was looking for the train tickets. I thought about what you said, and then I saw those…”

“Dragons,” Carolyn completed the sentence.

“So I got on the train and dropped the chip in the bathroom to create a diversion. They’re probably staking it out as we speak.” Her face grew serious. “The next stop is Hudson, which is a haul, but we better get out of here.”

Billy didn’t know how to react. He looked at the still-smiling Carolyn, who began physically wiping the tears off his face. He smiled back at her and said, “What is with you and trains. Haven’t you ever heard of a car?”

She giggled softly. “No car seats on a train.”

“I didn’t think about that.”

More giggling.

He then turned parental. “How’s your shoulder?”

It was still wrapped heavily, bulging the fabric of her hockey jersey. Wearing a jersey with her name on it was the equivalent of hanging a sign around her neck that screamed
Missing Kid!
, but it was still a better option than her bloodstained sweater and coat.

“It hurts really bad,” she said, the sly grin slipping from her mouth before she even got the next words out. “Only kidding, Billy!”

He was grinning like a fool. “You really had me going there.”
Carolyn’s face then turned stony, and she scolded, “I thought you said we’d stick together.
Remember?
”

Billy nodded. “You’re right. Is there any way I can make it up to you?”

Satisfied, her smile returned. “Ice cream would be a good start.”

Billy’s gaze roamed to Dana, locking eye contact. The icy aura had melted away. She appeared to be the Dana he had come to know, only less motion. “What made you change your mind about me?”

“I didn’t change my mind about you, Billy. I just remembered my mother telling me that I should always keep hope alive.”